


Broken Soulmarks

by PirateCress



Series: Illogical Soulmarks [1]
Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Aromantic Bobby Wilson, Asexual Bobby | Trevor Wilson, Asexual Character, Asexual Luke Patterson (Julie and The Phantoms), Fluff, I don't quite fully understand what angst means among our culture but I was told this had angst??, I just wanted to project onto Luke, I promise, It was kind of accident, It's actually going to have a super happy ending, It's both Pre-Canon and Post-Canon just because I can, Multi, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Sorry Not Sorry, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Sunset Curve (Julie and The Phantoms), The other boys are sort of Asexual, The soulmarks are the last thing your soulmate says to you, but now I like it, everyone ends up happy, it just sort of happened without me realizing, it was a mistake I swear, it's only implied, so I'm keeping it, so I'm tagging angst, the soulmarks are chaos, then it ended up being split among all four of them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-13 19:41:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 16
Words: 20,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28908762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PirateCress/pseuds/PirateCress
Summary: Well, Reggie’s always wanted a soulmark. He could never seem to wait for the words to appear. Yeah, the words will be no help in determining who his soulmate is, but he can’t help but hope that they’ll give some indication as to who they are.So, when Reggie was twelve-and-somewhere-in-between and got his soulmark while just sitting there and strumming on a banjo he can’t even play, he surprised even himself by hating it and wanting absolutely nothing to do with it. Hey, at least we’ll all be together.Yeah…no. He doesn't like those words.
Relationships: Alex Mercer & Julie Molina & Luke Patterson & Reggie Peters, Alex Mercer & Reggie Peters (Julie and The Phantoms), Alex Mercer/Willie (Julie and The Phantoms), Bobby | Trevor Wilson & Alex Mercer, Bobby | Trevor Wilson & Alex Mercer & Luke Patterson & Reggie Peters, Bobby | Trevor Wilson & Reggie Peters, Flynn/Julie Molina/Carrie Wilson, Julie Molina & Luke Patterson, Luke Patterson/Reggie Peters (Julie and The Phantoms)
Series: Illogical Soulmarks [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2140647
Comments: 259
Kudos: 235





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> So, I just like epilogues, and this one is short, so I'm including it. It's not really a chapter, but yeah...here we are...

_"Giving someone a piece of your soul is better than giving a piece of your heart. Because souls are eternal.” —Helen Boswell_

The last words your soulmate ever says to you is tattooed on your wrist. It’s pretty gruesome. And it’s kind of a scary thing, really. You can live your whole life with someone, only to find out you were never meant to be in the first place. What kind of sick, twisted fate is this?

Soulmarks have no predetermined reasoning for appearance. Nobody can ever figure out a pattern for why they appear when they do. They just…appear. Some babies are born with their mark, while others may get them in their young years, and others get them in their late teens. But, there are two consistencies: They always appear by the age of eighteen, and they are _never_ wrong.


	2. Lost Soulmark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this chapter is like...sort of sad, but if you think about it, it's really not that bad. I promise.  
> Read on and enjoy...??

_“Loving can cost a lot but not loving always costs more, and those who fear to love often find want of love is an emptiness that robs the joy from life.” —Merle Shain_

Well, Reggie’s always wanted a soulmark. He could never seem to wait for the words to appear. Yeah, the words will be no help in determining who his soulmate is, but he can’t help but hope that they’ll give some indication as to who they are.

So, when Reggie was twelve-and-somewhere-in-between and got his soulmark while just sitting there and strumming on a banjo he can’t even play, he surprised even himself by hating it and wanting absolutely nothing to do with it. _Hey, at least we’ll all be together._

Hey, at least we’ll all be together.

 _Hey, at least we’ll all be together._  


Hey. at. least. we’ll. all. be. together.

Yeah…no. He doesn’t like those words. After thinking as much as an twelve-and-somewhere-in-between-year-old could about soulmarks, Reggie determined a few things. One: Reggie and his soulmate are probably going to die together. Two: His soulmate said _all_ , referring to a group, which means him, his soulmate, and at least one other person were going to die together. Three: It could literally just be the end of a conversation that he walks out of, and it just happens to be the last words he hears his soulmate say to him, which is equally as sad and scary.

Either way, none of that settles well with Reggie. There’s actually nothing wrong with the words on his wrist, because very likely they’ll grow to an old age together, but it was like all romance in his brain was switched off. Just the act of getting his words freaked him out for some unexplainable reason. Because for a reason Reggie can’t describe or explain, the words aren’t…right. It was almost like Reggie’s soulmark was itching to get off.

If you were to ask Reggie why he didn’t like his soulmark, he would never be able to tell you.

———————

Reggie hasn’t told Alex or Bobby about his soulmark yet, and it’s been a week. He doesn’t want to worry them, if his soulmark _could even_ worry them. But they both know that he’s a romantic at heart, and for him to give up his idea of soulmates would probably worry them. So, he simply hasn’t told them, much less shown them his soulmark.

Reggie throws on his dad’s old flannel, the blue one, to cover up his soulmark that is so _conveniently_ placed on his wrist, and laces up his tennis shoes. Alex’s house is only about five minutes away by bike, and Reggie needs to get there fast. Alex called him, saying it was an emergency, obviously crying, and Reggie can only wonder what that means in the meantime. Reggie doesn’t even ask his parent’s permission for two reasons: One, why would they care? Two, it’s Alex, so it’s not like they would say no.

When he gets to Alex’s house, he drops his bike in the grass, not bothering to care about the Mercer’s pristine front yard with fresh mulch in the flowerbeds, newly bloomed roses, and perfectly cut green grass. He knocks on the door, bouncing from one leg to the next until Mr. Mercer opens the door. Mr. Mercer doesn’t even give Reggie a chance to speak before he says, “They’re in his room.”

“Thanks,” Reggie says and runs off. He nearly trips down the stairs twice trying to get up to Alex’s room in record time. When he bursts into Alex’s room, he sees a few things. Alex is crying, clutching his shoulder, and the other is that Bobby, Mrs. Mercer, Amanda, and Miranda are all around Alex. Amanda and Miranda are Alex’s younger sisters, nine and six respectively.

“Lexi, what happened?” Reggie asks, rushing forward to sit right in front of Alex. He’s scanning Alex’s face, trying to figure out what’s going on, and he looks to see where Alex is holding. His shoulder.

Mrs. Mercer gets up and shoes the girls out. “We’ll leave you three alone.”

Alex is shaking his head, crying, not speaking. Reggie turns to Bobby. “Bobby, what’s going on?” Bobby shakes his head, and Reggie knows that he’s saying to not ask him, and to wait for Alex’s response.

Reggie turns back to Alex and tentatively places his hand on Alex’s knee. “You know you can tell us, right?”

After a drawn out time of sobbing and shaky breaths, Alex eventually hooks his fingers on the collar of his shirt and tugs it down to reveal his _blank_ shoulder, only red from the pressure that Alex had put on it.

Reggie gasps. “But…Lexi…I thought…It’s gone……I’m so sorry.”

Alex lets go of his shirt collar and nods his head. He wipes his tears away, only for more tears to pour into their places. “Yeah….It happened just after lunch. I..I was just sitting here, and it…the soulmark..started to burn. Like, really burn. It felt like someone was stabbing it. And then…the mark started…it flickered. And Mom saw it flicker. So did Amanda. She shouldn’t have had to see that.” Amanda got hers a few years before. Miranda didn’t get hers yet.

“And then I called…And it disappeared just a minute before you got here. It burned. And it was gone. Everyone…everyone saw it disappear. It just flickered out, and it was gone. It’s gone. It’s gone Reg. And, it’s gone. Like, really gone. It’s not coming back.” He said it with such certainty, and Reggie could see the pain in his eyes.

Reggie asks, “Why do you think it disappeared?”

Alex doesn’t answer. Reggie turns to Bobby. Bobby looks at Alex for confirmation, and Alex doesn’t even move to tell him yes or no. Bobby whispers, “Reg…his soulmate died.”

Reggie frowns. “But that can’t be right. You need to actually meet your soulmate one day for the mark to be right.”

Bobby shrugs helplessly. “For all we know, they could have already met and never known.”

Alex whispers, “ _Goodbye_.” Alex shudders. “That’s all that I had. H—She died. My soulmate died, and I didn’t even meet them.”

Reggie tries to comfort Alex. Then Bobby says, “The universe wouldn’t pair you with someone who you’ll never meet. If you already met them, and then didn’t even know it was them, then they probably weren’t that special.”

Reggie shoves Bobby. “Dude, he could have met them when he was a baby or something. It could have been any time in his thirteen years of life. It could have been the girl that bit Alex’s ankle at the playground when he was on the monkey bars in kindergarten and the teacher made her apologize, and then the mom also made her apologize. Then she moved and you still have a grudge on her.”

Alex wipes his nose, but apparently doesn’t have the energy to retort. After a few minutes, Alex says, “You know, the soulmark was the _one_ constant in my life. It was something that was bound to go right. I was supposed to meet my soulmate and fall in love and they weren’t supposed to… they shouldn’t have…they should be alive.”  


Reggie sighs. “I’m so sorry Lex.” Reggie doesn’t know what else to say. It’s hard to know what to say, because he was never in a million years prepared to comfort a young Alex grieving over the death of his soulmate. Not really one to enjoy silence, Reggie says, “Soulmarks are over-rated anyways. Trust me.”

“Yeah, whatever, Reg.”

After a few moments, Alex murmurs, “Can you guys just stay with me?”

Reggie is first to agree. “Yeah, yeah, of course.”

And at the same time, Bobby snorts. “As if we were going to leave you.”

Reggie reaches in to hug Alex. Alex accepts the hug, and Bobby joins in. After another stretch of silence, Alex says, “I have you guys. Just promise me that you won’t die. I’m going to need you guys if I don’t have my soulmate.” Alex is saying it in a joking tone, but Reggie and Bobby both knew that Alex wasn’t joking around.

Reggie says, “Yeah, of course.”

“If we die, we’re taking you down with us.”

Alex barks out laughter.

And yeah, Reggie supposes that soulmarks aren’t that great after all, but he’s found something better. He has two best friends, and they don’t need to be soul bonded to be special to each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, OBVIOUSLY Willie is Alex's soulmate, but the universe messed him up by giving them soulmarks while they were both living, and they met when they were young, like park playmates young. And Alex is obviously going to meet Willie as a ghost, so yeah... 
> 
> :)


	3. Catch A Fish

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so we have this lovely section. It's kind of short, but next chapter, we meet ~*~Luke~*~ so it's all good.  
> If there are any mistakes, ignore them, I'll probably find them soon and freak out trying to fix them.
> 
> Read on...??

_“Friendship isn’t about who you’ve known the longest, it’s about who walked in to your life, said ‘I’m here for you,’ and proved it.”_ _—_ _Unknown_

It’s late evening and there’s not many people left on the beach. Just buskers trying to make a living off of people pitying them, couples trying to take romantic walks on the beach, and three thirteen year old idiots names Reggie, Alex, and Bobby.

“Reg, if you can catch a fish, I’ll give you ten bucks,” Bobby says, smirking.

And Reggie being Reggie, says, “Fifteen. And I’ll catch a big one too.”

“Deal.”

Alex shakes his head and huffs. “Guys, it’s 47° outside. The water is even colder. You aren’t going to catch a fish.”

Reggie starts to pull off his coat and shoes. “Dude, I’m getting fifteen bucks.”

“Yeah, and you’ll have to use that money to go towards your medical bill when you get sick and then you get even more sick, then you die of pneumonia, and you’ll be six feet under. Or or or you’ll drown because it’s too cold and we can’t get in the water to save you because we don’t want to die too, and you won’t even get fifteen dollars, and at that point we won’t even be able to bury you because your body will be lost out at sea and fish will eat you, and if you’re unlucky, a shark will eat you too, and—”

Reggie laughs and takes off his shirt. “Dude, I’ll be fine. Just watch my clothes.”

Alex tries to shove all of Reggie’s clothes back at him. “Dude, you’re already shaking and shivering. I really don’t want you to die. Get dressed. I’ll buy you a fish.”

Reggie starts to take off his bracelets as well. “It’s fine. I promise.”

Alex continues to freak out, and Bobby being the voice of reason for literally once in his life, says, “Reg, when did you get your soulmark?”

Alex whips his head to look at Reggie’s wrist which he’s holding against his chest. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Bobby grabs Reggie’s arm. “Dude, it’s right there.”

Reggie jerks his arm back. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Alex shoves Reggie’s clothes back at him. “Dude, get dressed. We’re talking about this whether you want to or not. I’ll buy you a fish, but please for the love of God, don’t get in that water.”

Reggie tries to run off into the water without Alex stopping him, but he holds Reggie back and sits him down on his front porch steps. “Put your clothes on, invite us in for hot chocolate that I’ll make, and tell us about your soulmark you’ve been trying to hide from us.”

Reggie gives up. He _really_ didn’t want to tell his friends about his soulmark. Hopefully ever, but realistically he knows they would have found out soon.

Reggie leads them inside while pulling his clothes back on. His parents are out right now, so he doesn’t mind letting them in. Once he’s sitting at the kitchen table while Alex is making hot chocolate like he promised, Bobby says, “You know you could have told us, right?”

Reggie sighs and pulls up the sleeve of his shirt to show the words written in almost chicken scratch reading _Hey, at least we’ll all be together._ Bobby shrugs. “What’s so bad about that?”

Alex calls out from the counter, “What’s it say?”

Reggie takes a deep breath. “ _Hey, at least we’ll all be together._ ”

“Yeah, what’s so bad about that?”

Reggie pulls his sleeve back down and starts clasping his bracelets back on. He shrugs.

Alex sits down in front of him and pushes a hot chocolate his way. “Hey, at least you have a soulmark.”

Reggie looks down. “I didn’t really want to tell you after…after what happened.”

“You don’t have to worry about me. I’m happy for you.”

Reggie sighs. “I…just…they aren’t…good. I can just tell.”

Bobby doesn’t seem to understand, but Alex nods. “Yeah, I understand that. But…I could tell that my words were good. I guess not.”

Bobby nudges Reggie’s shoulder, and Reggie almost spills his hot chocolate. “So, how long have you managed to hide it from us. “A few days? A few weeks? A month?”

Reggie sips his hot chocolate then puts it down. “9 months. It was six days before Alex lost his.” Alex spits out his hot chocolate in shock, almost splattering it all over them, and Bobby almost drops his mug.

“Nine months? Holy shit dude.”

Reggie self-consciously rubs his mark. “Yeah. I just…I don’t like it, and then Alex lost his, and you don’t even have yours yet, so I didn’t want to bring it up.”

Alex grabs a rag to wipe the table after he spit his hot chocolate all over it. They sip hot chocolate in silence, and when they finally finish and are washing the mugs, Reggie asks, “Can we just pretend this never happened. I want to act like I never got my mark. Just pretend that it’s not there.”

Bobby frowns. “Why would we pret—”

Alex interjects. “Of course.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up is ~*~Luke~*~ and I'm already halfway through writing it, so it'll be out soon.
> 
> :)


	4. Dude, He Was Cute

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WE MEET LUKE! WOOH!  
> Sorry there wasn't an update last night, I had a raging headache and at that point, stabbing my leg probably would have felt better.  
> Yeah, just read on and hopefully enjoy.

_“If I could only control time, I’ll go back to the moment when we first met, not to change anything, but to experience it all over again.” —www.loveandsayings.com_

Reggie is able to ignore his mark as much as possible until he’s somewhere in between fourteen and fifteen, and it starts to itch. Not physically, but mentally. Something is going to happen, and he doesn’t really want to be there for it.

A few weeks later…

“Bobster, you have to help me!” Bobby shakes his head. Reggie turns to Alex. “Lexi?”

Alex shakes his head. “No. We’re not going to help you hide a cat. A cat would hate your house, and besides, Bobby is allergic.”

“But dude, Jenny is so sweet!” 

“You named it?!”

Reggie nods. “Her. She’s a her, not an it. And—”

Alex groans. “Next thing that you’re going to say is that it’s hiding in your room and—Oh, you’re hiding it in your room, aren’t you?”

Reggie dramatically shrugs. “Yeah, but—Ow.” Reggie ran into someone and was now on the ground all because he was walking backwards while talking to his friends.

The guy he ran into groans. “Dude, watch where you’re going.”

Reggie looks up, “You could watch out too, you know. You…” And whatever else he was going to say he just kind of forgot because a guy with messy brown hair barely contained by a beanie and the prettiest face with hazel eyes was holding out his hand to help him up.

The boy helped him up and said, “I’m Luke.”

“Um..Reginald. Actually, it’s Reggie. That’s what my friends call me.”

Luke nods. “Cool.”

His friends introduce themselves right after, and Reggie is ashamed to say that he’s staring. Bobby nudges him. “You okay, dude?”

Reggie snaps out of it. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.”

Luke says, “Well, I’m sorry for knocking you down. That’s a way to make a good first impression on my first day of school here. See you around!”

As soon as Luke walks away, Reggie finally starts to notice the world around him again. Alex nudges Reggie’s shoulder and laughs. “Dude, he was cute.” Alex had come out to them a few months ago, and when Reggie and Bobby accepted him so casually that it wasn’t even an event, Alex didn’t seem too nervous to tell them random guys he thinks are cute, or about his crushes from when he was younger. But this…Well, this is different somehow.

Reggie snaps his head to face Alex. “Um, I guess, sort of. But, like…” Reggie nervously chuckles. “Girls am I right?”

Bobby laughs. “Yeah.”

Alex snorts. “Sure, Bud. Keep telling yourself that.”

Reggie splutters. “I don’t like him. He was just nice after I knocked him over. Besides, I like girls.”

“Okay, Reg.”

Reggie ignores Alex’s comment, and instead focuses on all the girls he ever liked to remind himself that he likes girls. Because girls are pretty. And have gorgeous, super soft hair, and pretty laughs, and soft lips, and are super sweet. Girls. Right. Girls.

———————

At lunch, Luke just plops himself down at their table, right next to Reggie. “Hey.” Reggie’s face goes crimson, much against his will, and he purposely ignores everyone else and tries to eat as much of his food as he can so he can’t blurt out something stupid. His mouth most definitely works independently of his brain, so eating should prevent random and embarrassing sentences that may fly out of his mouth.

Bobby laughs. “Oh, this is just rich.”

Luke tilts his head. “How?”

Bobby shakes his head and laughs. “ Never-mind.”

“So, I need to get to know you guys. Do any of you play guitar?”

Reggie swallows his spaghetti and nods. “Yeah. I kind of play guitar.”

Bobby says, “Don’t be modest. He also plays banjo, piano, bass guitar, and harmonica.” Bobby only did that to further embarrass Reggie. He gives Reggie a pointed look, and is sporting a wicked grin.

Alex adds, “Don’t forget ukulele.”

Reggie resists burying his face in his hands. “I’m really only good at bass guitar and banjo.”

Luke grins though. “Dude, that’s pretty amazing, still. You’re practically a musical genius. Maybe sometime we can play some of the music I wrote.” Then Luke gets this _gleam_ in his eyes. “I want to be in a band one day. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame!”

Reggie, trying to divert the attention from himself, and to drag his two idiot friends along with him, says, “Well, Lexi plays the drums, and Bobbers plays rhythm guitar and piano.”

Luke doesn’t even try to swallow his sandwich before saying, “Really? I can’t believe I ran into my future band! We’re going to be famous!”

Alex looks at Reggie with wide eyes, almost as to ask, “What did we just get ourselves into?”

Well, to answer, they just got themselves into the best friendship ever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, another chapter is in the works. Hope you enjoyed!
> 
> :)


	5. Best Friends, Though

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn't my favorite chapter, but it's kind of decent, I guess?   
> Enjoy?

_“If grass can grow through cement, love can find you at every time in your life.” —Cher_

The fluttery feeling in Reggie’s stomach never disappeared, and his heart always pounded wildly whenever he saw Luke, but he told himself it was because he so desperately wanted to be Luke’s best friend (which he was).

It took him about five and a half months to admit that he does, in fact, have a crush on none other than Luke Patterson. But at that point, they became such close friends, that he could never ruin it. And Luke is about as straight as a ruler. Yeah, he casually flirts with _everybody_ meaning absolutely _everybody,_ but he only ever really pursues girls. So basically, Reggie gave up on hope of Luke liking him back. It doesn’t mean that Reggie stopped liking him, though. No, it was the complete opposite. Every single day, Reggie fell deeper into love with Luke.

And he absolutely hated it. Because if by some literal miracle Luke liked him back, Reggie will have dragged him down below to the darkness of his mark. He _knows_ for a _fact_ that the mark isn’t good. It’s a feeling of numb calmness whenever he tries to focus on it too much, and that’s absolutely _not good_.

A few weeks after Reggie turns fifteen, a pretty girl named Jamie started flirting with him. So he flirted back. And then he got her phone number. So he called her, and they set up a date. And soon enough they were dating. And Jamie is amazing! She has the thickest brown hair with red streaks that she did herself, big brown eyes, and always went everywhere with her leather jacket (they found out that they had the same brand and even bought it at the same store) and combat boots. But the thing was that she wasn’t at all that fierce. She acted tough, popping bubble gum in the middle of her conversations, but as soon as you got to know her, she was a sweetheart who could hardly hurt a fly. Luke joked that Reggie and Jamie were so similar, they were practically already married.

And that hurt. A lot.

Reggie wished that he loved her more. But he can’t, not when his heart unwillingly belonged to Luke. Why can’t he just fall in love with Jamie?! I mean, he loves her, but he’s not _in love_ with her. Why can’t it be the other way around?

But, even if he told Luke, Luke’s obviously _super_ straight, as previously mentioned. It’s a lose-lose situation, and it ends with Reggie lying to himself and Jamie by continuing to date her. And Reggie can just _see_ the way that Jamie looks at her best friend. It’s the same way he looks at Luke, if that’s any indication.

“Reggie, we need to talk,” Jamie says, and Reggie _knows_ what’s next. But he pretends not to.

“What’s up?”

“I think we would be better off as friends. Siblings even. But not soulmates.”

Reggie sighs and leans back against the couch. “I’m sorry. I should have seen this coming.”

Jamie sighs and falls back against the couch too. “We were both kidding ourselves.”

Reggie nods in agreement. “I don’t know who we were trying to fool.”

Jamie laughs. “We were trying to fool ourselves.”

“I wish we did.”

“Me too.”

Silence. Then, “Are you ever going to tell Claire?”

Jamie sighs. “I don’t even know anymore. She doesn’t even know that I’m not straight…Are you ever going to tell Luke?”

Reggie shakes his head. “Nah. I could never. If by some lucky chance he’s my soulmate, I’d be dragging him down some dark road of despair _I_ don’t even understand.”

Jamie shoves him. “Wow, thanks. I’m so glad you thought I was good enough to go down that dark road of despair with you.”

Reggie laughs, and then she laughs harder, and then he laughs even harder. It ends with them on the floor clutching their sides, trying not to burst. When they finally calm down, sides aching, Jamie says, “So, friends?”

“Oh, we’ll be the best.”

Almost hesitantly, Jamie asks, “I know this is kind of weird considering we just broke up, but could we pretend to date just so Collin doesn’t pester me about Claire anymore.”

Reggie hesitates. But what else does he have to lose? “At this point, why not? It’s better than telling Luke.”

Luke chooses that moment to walk into the studio and say, “Better than telling me what?”

Reggie stutters and Jamie picks it up for him, “Telling you about his soulmark.”

Reggie jerks his head to face her. That’s _not_ a good conversation cover up. Luke frowns. “You told her, but not me?”

Reggie sits up. “No, no! I didn’t tell her.”

Luke frowns, but walks to sit next to them on the couch. He immediately launches into talking about music. “So, I was up late last night, trying to write a song, but I couldn’t come up with anything, then I thought, ‘why not use the idea of late last night?’ So I started writing. And you could have this killer solo right there,” Luke says, pointing to some words that he scribbled down, hardly legible to the rest of the world.

Jamie shakes her head and laughs. “I’ve got to go. See you later, Reg!”

“Bye Jamie!”

Luke distractedly waves, continuing to talk to Reggie about the song, knowing that he’s only going to repeat it all when the other bandmates show up. But until then, Reggie is going to sit there and listen to every word Luke says, captivated by his passion for music, and his absolute utter stupidity that he seems to possess.

And Reggie is so far gone for Luke.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OBVIOUSLY, they can't act on anything because that ruins the whole finding out when dying part, but it's really hard to resist.   
> Oh, and next chapter, Alex's faded soul mark starts to mess things up for himself. You'll see... But so there's no hatred, obviously, Willex is endgame.
> 
> :)


	6. Three AM is NOT Acceptable

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ready for some soulmark chaos I can't even explain? I just thought, "WHY NOT GIVE ALEX MORE REASONS FOR ANXIETY?"  
> Just read on. I wrote this super late last night, and didn't post, but here it is now. I haven't edited it, but I could care less. 
> 
> ENJOY!

_“‘We’ll be Friends Forever, won’t we, Pooh?’ asked Piglet. ‘Even longer,’ Pooh answered.” —A.A. Milne (Winnie-the-Pooh)_

Alex calls Reggie’s house at three am. Three am. Three fucking am. Alex _knows_ that Reggie is the only one home since it’s Sunday and his dad is out on a “business trip” and his mom is staying at her friends house because they were going to spend the evening drinking as if that’s not what they already do. But why on _earth_ does Alex think that it’s okay to call him at THREE AM?!

“What do you want?!” Reggie grumbles. If Alex needed him, he should have just showed up, not called at three am.

“You need to show up now.”

“…Can’t it wait till tomorrow? We have school.”

“I’m about to leave for Bobby’s. I’m calling Luke next. Show up to the studio. Now.”

Reggie loves his friends so dearly, but he’s really not willing to go to Bobby’s garage at three am when next week is exam week. “Why?”

Alex’s voice wavers and then he barely whispers out, “Soulmark emergency.”

“Oh. _Oh_. Okay, I’m on my way.” Reggie hangs up the phone and tries to grab something to throw on before he bikes to Bobby’s house. He barely has time to pull on his boots and flannel before leaving. Reggie has absolutely what the soulmark emergency can be because Alex lost his years ago. But besides that, the last soulmark emergency had been pretty bad, and if Alex is panicking about it again, Reggie might as well be there. Even if it’s three am.

Reggie drops his bike in the grass outside Bobby’s front yard and stumbles into the studio. Bobby’s sitting crosslegged on the couch, a black hoodie pulled over his head, and a scowl. “Alex better hurry this up. Tomorrow is math exams because Mr. Harner likes scheduling important things on a Monday, and I would at least like to fail with a decent amount of sleep.”

Reggie sits next to him and flops his head in Bobby’s lap. “He told you what the emergency was, right?”

“No, he just threatened to cut my guitar strings with a pair of rusty scissors if I didn’t get show up.”

Reggie nods. “Alex was nice to me.”

“Of course he’s nice to you. You’re everyone’s favorite.”

“Not Luke’s.”

“Not this shit again. Stop pining for five minutes please. You have a girlfriend now.”

Right. A girlfriend. He forgot about that. To be fair, they broke up a while ago and haven’t really been dating for months. “Right. Girls.”

“Reg, please acknowledge that you aren’t straight. It’s been almost a year now.”

“I’m not straight. I just like girls. I choose girls any day.”

“And boys every other. And Luke in between.”

“Rude.”

Alex bursts in a couple moments later, looking to be on the verge of some attack. At this point, Reggie doesn’t know if it’s anxiety or panic. He’s hyperventilating.

Reggie and Bobby get up and rush forward. Bobby ducks down to look Alex in the eye because Alex is refusing to look at any of them. “Dude, what’s wrong?”

“Soulmark.”

Alex sits down in front of them and Reggie and Bobby go over breathing methods with him. Luke arrives in the middle of Reggie and Bobby trying to help Alex, and that only freaks him out more. After a long time of hyperventilating and trying to stutter out words, Alex stops the majority of freaking out. Bobby gets up to get some water from the sink in the studio, and Alex accepts it with shaking hands. The hands aren’t shaking a little. It’s more like it’s violently vibrating to the point of it almost causing an earthquake.

Luke says, “Hey, do you want to hold one of our hands?” Alex nods, and Luke offers up his hands.

Reggie asks, “Are you ready to tell us yet?”

Alex nods and takes a deep breath. “I felt a jolt right there and I woke up, and…well…” He lets go of Luke’s hands for a moment to tug down the collar of his shirt to reveal words.

There’s new words etched onto his skin. _See you around, hotdog!_

Everyone is freaking out just a little, but the original trio of them is freaking out differently than Luke. “Man, that’s great!”

Alex shakes his head. “That’s not great.”

“Why not? You got your soulmark!”

Alex turns to Reggie and Bobby to silently ask them to explain. Bobby begins, “Lex was born with a soulmark. Then when we were twelve…”

Reggie picks it up for him. “He lost his mark. His soulmate died.”

Bobby whispers, “I was there when the mark flickered away. It…It’s not something you can forget.”

Luke bites at his lower lip, a bad habit of his when he doesn’t have a guitar pick to chew on instead. Alex is able to take over speaking again. “The words…My soulmark said ‘goodbye’. And they’ve changed. After almost three years being completely gone, it’s back. And it’s different. _See you around, hotdog!_ ” Alex shudders. “Why? Why now? He died. I know he died. I…I felt it. I know that doesn’t make any sense, but it felt like a connection was severed. He died. Why do I have a new soulmark?”

Reggie puts his hand on Alex’s shoulder. “I don’t know what to say. I just hope you still find a person who deserves you.”

Luke and Bobby nod in agreement. “Definitely.”

Alex visibly panics a little and says, “Yeah, but now I have to tell my mom about my mark, and she’ll be pushing all these girls at me, and I’ll have to say no, but I can’t explain why, and if I ever find guy I really like who I think might be my soulmate, I’ll have to explain that to her, and now I actually have to consider coming out to her, because I actually have a chance at love, and I’m just panicking because of a lot of reasons. And I just don’t know how to describe it as anything other than a stomach ache, and I just.” He buries his head in his hands. “Ugh.”

Bobby grunts. “Dude, you could still find love without a soulmark. My GinGin never got a mark because Pops is mute.”

Alex groans. “Yeah, but that’s a different case.”

Luke shrugs. “Kind of. But she never got a soulmark. If you didn’t get another soulmark, you could still find love one day.”

Reggie pipes in, “Yeah, and you never have to tell your mom. And if you want to, you can just tell your dad when you move out.”

Alex looks away and shrugs a little. “I guess.” And then Alex violently flinches and mutters, “What the fuck?” And before anyone can question what was going on, Alex pulls down the collar of his shirt again. _You ready, hotdog?_

And all of them, almost in perfect harmony, say, “What the fuck?” Then they all look up at each other for a moment, a little freaked out by their speaking in sync, before Bobby asks, “That wasn’t the one there before, was it?”

Alex shakes his head. “No, no, it wasn’t. I don’t know what’s going on.”

Then he violently flinches again and the words rearrange to say, _Well, hotdog, this is exactly what I hoped for._

Bobby mutters, “He hoped for death?”

And at the same time, the rest of them say, “What the fuck?”

Bobby frowns. “You’ve got to stop doing that.”

Alex asks, “Stop doing what?”

“Talking together perfectly.”

Reggie shrugs. “Can’t really stop it.”

Alex pinches himself. “This has got to be a dream.”

“Then I’m having the exact same one.”

Alex is squeezing his eyes shut and when he opens them, the words are still there. Luke says, “Well, I’m out. Lexi’s soulmark is freaking me out a little, and I kind of want to sleep a little more before getting to class and sleeping some more.”

Bobby gestures towards Luke, “He understands me.”

They fist bump, and Luke walks out. Bobby shakes his head. “What’s with us three and soulmarks? Why can’t they be normal?”

Reggie says, “I don’t know,” and then he freezes.

Alex asks, “Wait, us three and soulmarks? Did you get yours?”

Bobby looks down. “Right. That. Well, um, I just don’t really want to talk about it.”

Reggie tilts his head. “Are you sure?”

Bobby nods. “I…While your situation is unheard of, Lexi, mine are just weird. I’d rather not.”

Alex laughs. “Exactly! We can be weird together.”

Bobby shakes his head. “No, my soulmarks are weird. I’d rather not. Well, goodnight. Turn out the light.” He walks out of the studio and back up to his house.

Alex and Reggie turn to each other and Alex softly says, “You heard him say soulmarks too, right?”

Reggie nods. “As in multiple?”

Alex nods.

Reggie whispers, “Well, I guess we have to let him figure it out. He obviously doesn’t want us to know. As far as I’m concerned, we pretend mine doesn’t exist, so I guess we can do the same for his soulmarks.”

Alex nods. “Yeah, his situation is weird, but well, soulmarks are soulmarks. If he has two, then it’s meant to be.”

Alex stands up. “So, you ready to head out?”

Reggie nods. “Yeah, as Bobby told me, I want to get a good night’s sleep before I fail anyway.”

“That man is wise.”

Reggie nods in agreement. “Definitely.”

Reggie goes back to his house and he lays in his bed. He wants to get sleep, but all he can seem to do is think about all that happened. Bobby probably has two soulmates. Alex’s soulmate or soulmark or something in the universe keeps changing, Reggie’s still ignoring the existence of his, and Luke doesn’t have his yet. They are one interesting bunch. A group of misfits with messed up soulmarks. It’s no wonder they’re all meant to be friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ENJOYED IT??? Cause I did. Another one will either be out tomorrow or super late tonight.
> 
> Also, I'm really thinking about Bobby having his own little story and making this a series. (And giving Julie, Carrie, and Flynn their own little story.)
> 
> :)


	7. Nobody's Straight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I know it's been a while since the last chapter, but I spent two days texting my friend because ~*~Sexuality Crisis~*~  
> And moving on, I know this isn't a long chapter, but here we go..  
> Enjoy???

Alex’s mark is still changing. He’ll show up to school some days and say, “It changed again.” And they’ll nod and accept it, not even trying to keep track of what it says these days. And other times, it’ll happen during practice, and they’ll stop and Alex will tug at the collar of the shirt and read the words, and they’ll move on. And other times, out of the corner of their eyes, they can see Alex flinch at school and reach towards his shoulder. For the rest of the class, he’ll be anxious, and when class is over, he’ll rush off to the bathroom to read the new words. He’ll come back, and nobody even needs to ask. Alex is obviously confused, as are the rest of them, but it is what it is.

And a special thing is that about ninety percent of the time, it has the nickname “hotdog” in there. Reggie thinks it’s cute. Alex wishes that he wasn’t nicknamed after a food they buy from shady vendors. Reggie can tell that he likes it though, no matter how much he complains.

————————

Jamie and Reggie are still pretending, not caring to call it off at this point. They do meet up at least once a week though. They spend the time hanging out and talking about their crushes and eating pizza and talking about their crushes and watching Star Wars and talking about their crushes. Neither of them mind. They have no one else they can talk to about their crushes, so it’s to each other. And it’s nice to know that he has friends outside of the band. It makes him feel just a little more important.

————————

Luke storms in to practice one day, and before any of them can say hi, he says, “We don’t have a band name!”

Nobody else is really phased by it. Alex shrugs. “Okay.”

Luke shakes Alex’s shoulder. “WE NEED A BAND NAME!”

Bobby, being the sensible one, asks, “Why?”

“I got us a gig, and they want a band name!”

They all seem to understand at that point in time. They start to brainstorm. After a while, Reggie suggests _Sunset_ for one part of it, and Alex laughingly suggests, _Curve_. They all like it and accept it. _Sunset Curve_. It has a nice ring to it. Only Bobby seems skeptical over it.

Then, after practice, Bobby walks up to Alex at his drums, who is donning a grin that can’t quite be described as innocent. “Okay. What’s up?”

Alex shrugs. “Nothing. Do you think that something’s up?”

Bobby nods, obviously not accepting Alex’s bullshit. “Yes. What’s the pun?”

Alex rolls his eyes. “There’s no pun. I just thought that _Sunset Curve_ sounded good.”

Luke bounces up to Alex and nudges him. “I’m starting to see what Bobby’s talking about. You do seem kind of weirdly happy about it.”

Alex sighs. “Fine.” He waves his hands around in the air, vaguely gesturing, and says, “I just thought that we could call it _Sunset Curve_ because none of us are straight. I just kind of wanted to keep the pun secret and see he long it would take each of you to figure it out.”

Both Luke and Reggie protest at the same time, respectively each saying, “Nu-uh, Luke’s like as straight as a ruler!” And “Dude! Reggie’s super straight!”

Then they both stare at each other and then both say, “You aren’t straight?”

“No.”

“Since when?”

Bobby cuts in between them and says, “Stop. Speaking in unison. It’s really creepy.”

Luke protests. “But dude, I just found out Reggie’s not straight! Why didn’t I know this?”

Reggie dramatically shrugs. “The others know. They’ve known for a while.”

Luke pouts. “Why didn’t I know? I’m your best friend too.”

Reggie wishes he could hold back his blush. Luke didn’t really know because Reggie found out that he wasn’t so straight _because of_ Luke. Reggie tries to fein nonchalance. “I don’t know. I just thought you knew.” Reggie tries to switch the focus of conversation to Luke. “And speaking of which, why didn’t I know that you aren’t so straight after all?”

“Last week Alex and I talked about our crushes on Johnathan from lacrosse. You were there too.”

Reggie tilts his head. _He was?_ Why doesn’t he remember all of that.

Alex sighs. “Reggie, last Wednesday. The day that we couldn’t practice because Bobby was sick, and Luke had left his notebook in Bobby’s room, so we had spare time to kill.”

Ah. That day. Reggie vaguely remembers staring at Luke and being mesmerized by the way he makes every word sound like a song, and how he looks so beautiful when talking about something he enjoys. But Reggie wasn’t really focusing on the topic of conversation. Mostly because the second Luke mentioned the word “crush” Reggie zoned out so he didn’t feel the heartbreak. “Oh, right.” Reggie rubs his neck. “Oops.”

Bobby groans. “You’re both so fucking clueless.”

Luke says, “Rude,” and at the same time, Reggie responds, “Thanks.”

And that’s that. None of them are straight. It only hurts a little, because even though Luke isn’t straight, he still doesn’t like Reggie. That’s what hurts the most.

And of course, _Sunset Curve._ The perfect pun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!! Next chapter will be out soon enough,, I guess?? 
> 
> :)


	8. Why Am I Like This?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so it started with me just wanting to make an asexual character, and normally that would be Bobby, but he's not the focus in this specific story, so it had to either be Luke or Reggie. SO OBVIOUSLY it was going to be Luke. (asexual, sex-repulsed/averse{it's really kind of a combination of both, the in between}) But then the scene came around and I had an opportunity/chance to make it Bobby as well, so yeah. (Asexual, sex-averse) And then I just thought, WHY NOT ALEX TOO, BECAUSE NOBODY EVER DOES THAT FOR HIM!! So I think he's more around grey-ace in this fic. (grey-ace, sex-indifferent/sex-favorable) And then we have Reggie. Well, I just thought, I've already done the rest of the crew, why not him too??? (sex-favorable) And because of me and the fact that it makes me kind of squeamish to write this particular story with a sexual undertone, though I can do it, Reggie is kind of of the same way by the characterizations of me. On accident though.   
> I still can't believe I'm posting this chapter where they all end up some form of asexual, though I'm not quite sure with Reggie, I'm going to pretend that in this he's asexual or grey-ace or something similar, sex-favorable.
> 
> Ahead of time, I'm really kind of sorry, but I wrote this at around two-am, so it was super late and I was doing my usual doubting/questioning so I just kind of made the boys suffer. 
> 
> Also, TW: as you could probably tell by the rant above, there is going to be talk of sex in this chapter, though it's not the actual stuff, it's more of the not wanting to. thank you.
> 
> Read on and don't suffer?????????

_“I wanted so badly to lie down next to her on the couch, to wrap my arms around her and sleep. Not fuck, like in those movies. Not even have sex. Just sleep together in the most innocent sense of the phrase. But I lacked the courage and she had a boyfriend and I was gawky and she was gorgeous and I was hopelessly boring and she was endlessly fascinating.”—John Green, Looking for Alaska_

(At this point in time, I think they’re about 16 and a half~ish~~. I don’t really know. *shrugs* but that’s what I think I consider them to be in this.)

When Luke doesn’t show up to practice on time, the band is surprised to say the least. Alex is doing his model walk, Bobby’s casually sitting back and casually plucking at his guitar. Reggie is rambling about anything and everything, trying to divert his attention from the fact that Luke, of all people, is _late_.

When an entire hour passes, they give up trying to wait. Reggie says, “Let’s go find him.”

Alex sighs. “That’s what I’ve been saying for the past thirty minutes, but nobody listens to me!”

Bobby rolls his eyes. “Yeah, but the love-struck idiot sticks to his own schedule, so we were just ignoring you.”

Reggie shoots back, “I’m not love-struck!"

“I wasn’t talking ‘bout you. I was talking about Luke. He’s basically done whatever he wanted for the past two and a half weeks all because _Sarah_ came into the picture. He probably forgot his responsibilities because of his date last night. He’ll be here when he wants.”

Alex adds, “Yeah, but this is the first time he’s been late to band practice, much less missed it.”

Reggie’s head is spinning with thoughts of Luke and Sarah together. They went on a _date_. Why did he have to go on a date? Realistically, this was bound to happen, but it can’t help but hurt. And it’s not like Reggie’s making it obvious that he’s available because him and Jamie are _still_ pretending. The band is convinced that they’re in love and going to get married as soon as they reach legal age without parent’s permission. And it hurts. Still. But it’s not like they’ll have to keep up the act for much longer because Sarah wants to tell Claire next week.

The band eventually decides to go up to the house to call Luke and see if he’s at home. The phone rings three times before someone picks up. “Hello.”

“ _Hello. Who is this?_ ” It’s Emily.

“This is the band. Is Luke okay?”

“ _I thought he already called in sick today? He said he wasn’t feeling well._ ”

The band all glance among themselves. “No, he never called. Can we come over?”

Emily replies, “ _Give me a moment._ ” After a few moments of muffled talking, she says, “ _Luke says that he doesn’t want anyone to come over. He doesn’t want you to catch whatever he has._ ”

The phone is wrestled from Alex to Bobby, and Bobby asks, “Does he have fever?”

“ _No._ ”

“Is he throwing up?”

“ _Well, no._ ”

“Then we’ll see you shortly. Don’t tell Luke because he’ll try to escape via window.”

The guys all quietly try to wrestle the phone away from each other and argue before Emily says, “ _I don’t know why I tried to stop you three. Goodbye._ ”

“Goodbye!” Reggie shouts into the phone before he shoves it back at the box on the wall. 

Bobby looks at Bobby proudly, and Alex rolls his eyes. “Great. Emily is still probably going to tell Luke.”

Reggie shakes his head. “Nah. She wouldn’t risk him climbing out the window when he’s sick.”

They quickly rush off to Luke’s, Reggie forcing them to stop at the store for the biggest bag of Hershey Bars they could find because that’s Luke’s favorite chocolate. When they arrive at the Patterson household, they all crowd in front of the door, a giant bag of chocolate in their hands and anxious looks on their faces. Reggie knocks on the door and Emily opens up the door. “Good to see you three.” Then she sighs. “Sweets aren’t going to help him get better.”

Alex rolls his eyes. “The sweets aren’t for him to get better.”

Bobby adds, “They’re for us to eat in front of his face and brag that we have candy and he doesn’t.”

Alex continues, “And we won’t leave him any for when he gets better.”

Reggie looks at the two of them and squints. “I thought we bought these for Luke.”

Bobby sighs and softly says, not in a condescending way, but a patient way, “Reg, it’s sarcasm.”

Right. Sarcasm. He doesn’t always recognize when people are sarcastic. He likes to think that he’s gotten a lot better, but sometimes he realizes that he’s _way_ off target. Reggie bounces on his heels. “Can we come in now?”

Emily nods and lets them in. They bundle across the house, probably being the most obnoxious human beings in the universe. The second they practically slam open Luke’s door, Luke groans and says, “Get out.” It obviously sounds like he’s been crying. Luke’s room is a mess, clothes strewn everywhere, and all the pillows and blankets on Luke’s queen sized bed pilled around one center mass that is obviously Luke.

They all choose to sit on the bed, various closeness to him, some people (Alex) being more cautious about getting sick than others (Reggie). Luke just pulls the covers over his head and scrunches up even more. Bobby whispers, “Bud, how are you feeling?”

Luke just groans. “Not good. Get out.”

Reggie chimes, “We brought Hershey’s chocolate.”

Luke groans and begrudgingly gets up, but he does sit up, so they count that as a win. They finally get a good look at him, and _damn_ he does not look good. His eyes are puffy red and his face is blotchy. He’s obviously been crying recently, or at least cried for a long time in the past three hours. Bobby, being the MomTM of the group, says, “Luke, honey, have you been drinking enough water? You can’t cry for hours then not drink water. I don’t see an empty glass in the room.”

Luke grumbles. “I haven’t been crying.” But it doesn’t have any bite to it.

Bobby crosses his arms. “You obviously have. You’ll get dehydrated if you don’t drink anything.”

Luke forcefully snatches some chocolate out of the bag. Reggie is starting to see that Luke hasn’t been crying and sick, but rather just crying.

Reggie scoots closer to Luke and puts his hand on Luke’s shoulder. Luke _violently_ flinches away from it, but tries to disguise it as a cough. Reggie pulls his hand away.

Alex, with no emotion to his voice says, “You can drop the act. We know you’re not sick.”

Luke looks down and chomps of some of the chocolate. Bobby comes back in the room with a full glass of water. Luke carefully accepts it and drinks almost all of it.

Bobby continues to fuss over Luke like a worried Mama and says, “Now, are you ready to talk to us, or should we just sit here and feed you chocolate until you tell us while we go through your songbooks and try to figure out what’s wrong?”

Luke looks about half a second away from growling at Bobby, but stops mid-way looking very _very_ tired. He whispers “I broke up with Sarah.”

They nod. But of course Bobby reads the situation better than any of them. “I’m not an expert, but I don’t think that’s the problem. You’ve been in longer relationships and been perfectly fine. This isn’t it.”

Alex nods. “Yeah, we can tell that it’s something more.”

Luke wraps his arms around himself and curls in on himself. He doesn’t look at us as he says it almost like a sin. “Sarah tried to have sex with me.”

And Reggie shivers in a kind of way. What Luke said obviously had him so disturbed, that Reggie couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable. “Oh,” they all whisper.

Bobby fills in the blanks. “But you didn’t.”

Luke shakes his head. “I didn’t,” he confirms.

Alex softly asks, “Why?” It’s not condescending or judging, it’s more of urging Luke to open up.

Luke helplessly shrugs and rests his head on his knees. “I didn’t want to. Well…I did. But I couldn’t. It just felt so wrong. Everything felt super wrong. My breathing was speeding up, but in the bad kind of way, and I felt uncomfortable. And Sarah…she started to take her shirt off.” Luke is obviously starting to panic himself, but within a few moments, he’s calmed down enough to continue. “And I didn’t like it. She was too close and it just didn’t feel right. And the way she was trying to……She…” Luke sighs and barely manages to whisper, “she…tried to touch me. It just…I couldn’t. I left. I didn’t want it. I don’t want it.”

Alex whispers, “Is it okay if I hug you?”

Luke hesitates for a moment, then says, “Yeah.”

And Alex hugs Luke and Luke starts to cry again. Bobby consoles him and says, “You don’t have to want sex every time you have the chance.” Bobby’s composure kind of flickers a little like he doesn’t fully believe his words.

Luke corrects him. “Ever. I don’t want it. Ever. Girls or guys.”

Alex furrows his brow just a little and says, “Why?”

Luke looks ready to bolt away or throw up or something along those lines. “It’s…it’s disgusting to me. Others can do it, but I don’t want to see a person like that.”

Bobby seems to understand everything. “I get that.”

Luke looks up at him. “You do?”

Bobby nods. “I don’t want it. I..I thought I was the only person who thought that. We’re teenagers with hormones. We’re supposed to want it.” He fidgets his with his necklace. “But I don’t.”

Reggie kind of resonates with what they’re saying a little, but not to an extreme. Alex whispers, “While we’re doing these confessions, I honestly haven’t thought too much about it either. I mean, I wouldn’t necessarily _mind_ it, but I don’t think about..sex often? I mean, I think I would be fine with it, but it’s not important. I mean, I’m fine with knowing and talking about others doing it…but when it comes to me, I don’t really care. I’m good either way. Sometimes I think about it, but not often. It’s kind of weird.”

The three of them look at Reggie as if they’re expecting him to say something too. Reggie tries to look away, but their watchfulness is too intense. Reggie relents. “I mean, maybe?” Reggie sighs. “I don’t know. I’ve thought about it. It seems fine and all, I think I would like it a lot, but I don’t think about it a lot. I just…what does sexy even mean?”

Alex and Bobby helplessly shrug while Luke bitterly says, “I guess it means that you look at someone and want to have sex with them.” Luke visibly holds himself a little tighter. “Why can’t I be fucking normal? Normal guys would love to do that. I know they would. It’s all that Matty could talk about three weeks ago in Biology. But no, I would rather throw up than do that.”

Bobby nods. “Me too.”

Alex and Reggie don’t have anything to say. They share a look and realize that though their reactions aren’t the same as Luke’s or even Bobby’s, they understand just a little too, because they know that what the four of them think about sex isn’t quite normal.

Luke happens to look even more miserable. Reggie holds out his arms for Luke to hug him and Luke willingly falls into them. Soon enough it’s the four of them hugging. After they pull away from the hug, they kind of fall into a group pile with the four of them, leaning against the headboard of Luke’s bed, stealing some pillows to lay on. Luke leans into Reggie’s chest, holding onto his arm tight as if he’s scared Reggie’s going to go away. Reggie holds him back and whispers, “We’re here for you.”

And then, trying to ease out of the heavy silence, Reggie goes into a long and pretty thorough rambling about Sir Isaac Newton and all the other things people don’t necessarily credit him for doing, like creating calculus alongside Gottfried Leibniz because he needed a new type of math with framework that didn’t currently exist for explaining physics and gravity. And the others listen, asking questions when they don’t quite understand. It distracts the four of them from the thoughts of sex which clearly disturbed Luke, was uneasy for Bobby, and was kind of indifferent to Alex and Reggie. The others don’t seem to necessarily enjoy Reggie’s passionate rant about Sir Isaac Newton, but they listen and they’re distracted, so that’s what counts.

And they spend the rest of the day talking, Emily eventually bringing them in food and checking up on them. They eventually get up in the evening, only for them to pile onto the couch and watch a movie that Reggie doesn’t really pay attention to. It’s nice. The four of them together.

Now, if only he could tell Luke his feelings. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, again, I apologize. I hope you enjoyed it to an extent. I didn't edit the chapter, I just scanned through it and made sure that my two-am writing spree made sense.
> 
> :)


	9. Yeah, It's Bobby

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I haven't actually read this through, but it's basically a whole bunch of drama and stupid children! 
> 
> Read on and be happy children!

_“You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.” – Dr. Seuss_

(The above quote has nothing to do with this chapter, I just really really liked the quote a lot.)

Claire and Jamie end up dating after Jamie finally admitting her feelings. Jamie told Reggie that Claire admitted to have liked her for a long time, but gave up since she’s been dating Reggie for so long. Reggie is happy for Jamie, and tells her that he’s glad she got everything she wanted. And Jamie wishes Reggie the best of luck. Jamie and Claire actually have their first date at a Sunset Curve gig.

When Reggie goes to congratulate Jamie and Claire on their relationship, and the girls congratulate him on their set, the other bandmates begin to tease them, because Reggie forgot to mention that the two of them broke up. Jamie whispers something in Claire’s ear and Claire nods, so Jamie says, “Actually, I’m dating Claire.”

The rest of the bandmates stumble back into shock. “Reggie! When did this happen??!”

Reggie shrugs. “We broke up a while ago. Then we pretended for a few more months because Jamie wanted to wait to tell Claire.” In reality, it was more like a year, because once they started pretending for everyone else and not themselves, it was just really hard to stop.

Luke rushes to Reggie’s side and growls at Jamie. “Did you break his heart?”

Reggie whips his head to face Luke. “No! The break up was so mutual! As soon as we broke up, we started talking about our crushes! I promise, it was fine.”

Bobby walks off, saying something about trying to get free drinks, and Alex rolls his eyes, sending him off. Luke wiggles his eyebrows at Reggie. “Ooooh. Who's the crush, Reginald?”

Reggie panics and says, “I don’t have a crush!”

“You just said you do.”

Jamie tries to step in for Reggie, who is failing miserably, and Alex stops her, saying, “No, no. Don’t stop this. I want to see what he says.”

Reggie stutters. “You must have misheard me.”

Luke shakes his head. “No. Who is it?” Then his eyes go wide with what Reggie assumes to realization, but in reality it’s Luke jumping to painfully wrong conclusions. “Is it Bobby?”

Reggie almost chokes because NO! It’s not Bobby! But instead, he panics because he doesn’t want Luke to know about his crush and says, “Yeah.”

Alex facepalms and Jamie groans. Jamie throws her arms up in the air. “Dude, seriously!”

Luke doesn’t seem to notice their reactions, though. “Ooh, I can work on setting you two up!”

“No, that’s really not necessary.”

Alex who is enjoying this a little too much says, “No, let him set you two up. I want to see what he does.”

Reggie glares at Alex. “I don’t want you to set me up with Bobby.”

Luke looks at Reggie, a twinkle in his eyes, meaning that he’s already accepted this as a challenge. _Shit._ What did Reggie just get himself into? Reggie knows that Luke’s not going to give up until someone’s hurt or until he succeeds.

Reggie mumbles, “Can I have a moment to talk to Alex?”

Luke nods and runs off saying something about going to go talk to Bobby and Reggie internally screams. The second Luke walks away, Reggie bangs his head on the wall and then realizes he shouldn’t have done that because it hurt. Alex rubs Reggie’s back. “It’s Luke, isn’t it?”

Reggie nods and groans. Jamie crosses her arms. “Before Claire and I go to finish our date, let me just say that you are the dumbest human being I know. And the second most impulsive, Luke being the first.”

Reggie rolls his eyes. “Thanks Jamie.” Jamie and Claire walk away from the pair of them. “I’ll fill you in on this later.”

She calls back, “You better, mister!”

Alex says, “I don’t think the real disaster is that you lied to Luke about who your crush is. The real disaster is that you have to explain to Bobby exactly why Luke is going to be acting so obsessed over the two of you even looking at each, and explain exactly why you panicked and said you had a crush on him.”

Reggie groans and doesn’t hesitate to bang his head on the wall again. “Lexi, why did I do that?”

“Because you saw Luke’s apparently pretty face that you still haven’t gotten over since you’ve met him and blurted out the first reasonable answer you could come up with.” Alex pats Reggie’s shoulder and says, “Now, let’s go find Bobby and Luke before Luke says something that will embarrass all of us, because Luke is about as obvious as a brick wall.”

They make it a moment too late because when they find Luke and Bobby, Bobby’s blushing furiously red, and Luke’s has the biggest, proudest grin on his face. Bobby turns to Reggie and Alex and immediately turns his head the other direction. Reggie steps forward and Bobby still refuses to look in his eyes. “Reg, can we talk? Please?”

Reggie’s eyes go wide. He mouths to Luke, “What did you say?”

Luke shrugs and grins like a maniac. Bobby guides the two of them to the greenroom backstage where they got to wait before their set. Reggie takes a look back at Alex and Alex is laughing like a psychotic person. Once they reach the green room, Bobby closes the door behind him but still refuses to look him in the eyes.

“Why did Luke say that you think your mark is about me?”

“Luke fucking said _what_?”

“You heard me.”

“Look—”

“I don’t like you like that.”

Reggie breathes out in relief. “Thank God. I don’t like you like that either.”

“Then why the hell did Luke say that?” At last, Bobby looks in his eyes, still very clearly embarrassed.

Reggie groans and bangs his head on the nearest wall again because Luke is getting him into _way_ too many tight situations. “Luke asked who my crush was and I said nobody because I can’t fucking look Luke in the eyes and say that it’s him. I have a crush on that idiot. Since the day we met. And then he was like, ‘Is it Bobby?” And I panicked.”

Bobby groans. “And you said yes?”  


“I believe my exact words were, ‘yeah,’ but you get the point.”  


Bobby throws himself onto the couch and starts to chuckle. Then he adds, “Luke also said you said you liked my suspenders, but I’m guessing he made that up too?”

Reggie admits that. “Yeah, he did. But I do like your suspenders. I just never said it out loud.”

After a moment, Bobby holds open his arms and Reggie almost launches himself at Bobby. Burying his face into Bobby’s chest, trying to hide his embarrassment because Luke is a little shit, Reggie mumbles, “The dumbass doesn’t even know what the words on my mark say.”

Bobby chuckles. Then says, “What are you going to tell Luke?”

Reggie groans. “I don’t know.”

“I’m not fake dating you.”

“Gosh no, I could never ask that. I just got out of one fake relationship.”

After a minute or so of silence, Bobby quietly gets Reggie off and says, “Luke! You can come in.”

Luke at least has the decency to look embarrassed as he walks in with Alex behind him, still looking far too pleased with the situation. “I just didn’t want to interrupt.”

“We weren’t kissing.”

“I never said that.”

“We were silent. That’s what you thought.”

“Well, maybe.” Then, “So…”

Reggie cuts in. “We aren’t dating.”

Luke is literally the only one who looks upset at the idea of Bobby and Reggie dating. Bobby says, “I don’t like him like that.”

“Neither do I. And I never said I thought my soulmark was about him. You don’t even know my soulmark.”

Luke scuffs his shoe on the floor. “The others know it.”

And then Reggie feels bad. “…I didn’t want them to. They forced it out of me when we were like thirteen. We like to pretend it doesn’t exist, like we already do.”

Then a moment of silence. “Why did you say you liked him?”

Reggie sighs and sits on the couch, patting the spot next to him and Luke sits down and snuggles into Reggie’s side, making it _very_ hard to form perfectly coherent thoughts. “I panicked and just agreed with what you said. It’s really hard to say no to you, bro.”

Luke laughs. “Yeah. I’m pretty amazing.”

“Don’t get bigheaded.”

Reggie barely hears the other two leave the room and he suddenly wishes that it wasn’t just him and Luke. “Then who is it?” Reggie doesn’t answer. “Do I know him? Or are they a her?”

Reggie sighs. “You’ve never met him. Can we just let this go?”

Luke looks up with pleading eyes, and Reggie just wants to lean forward a little bit and softly kiss him because Luke is just so cute at that moment. And the way his beautiful eyes pierce Reggie’s soul make him fall in love just a little harder. Luke never verbally agrees to let the subject of Reggie’s crush go, but he doesn’t bring it up again. 

And when Luke snuggles closer into him, Reggie finds it increasingly harder to not softly whisper that Luke is all he’ll ever need.

But Reggie knows that he can’t because he can’t risk the outcome of either option. Reggie doesn’t want to ruin his friendship with Luke if Luke doesn’t like him back. And then, if he were to like Reggie back, by some slim chance, it only increases the chance of Luke being his soulmate, and when all hell goes down because of his mark, he doesn’t want to drag Luke down with him.

So, instead Reggie stays silent and feels the steady rising and falling and Luke’s chest as he breathes. It’s so soothing, Reggie could fall asleep, except for the fact that it’s Luke, which makes him wide awake and completely _unable_ to speak.

When Reggie finally gets back to the studio for the night, planning to stay there, not wanting to risk seeing if his parents are still up, he doesn’t fall asleep until the early hours of the morning, having to shower first. And then he lies awake, staring at the ceiling. He whispers, “I love you.”

Why is it so _easy_ to say right now? Why is it so _hard_ to say it to Luke?

He’ll say it one day. He promises himself that. He doesn’t want to drag Luke down, but he also doesn’t know how much longer he can keep pretending. He’ll say it after they play the Orpheum. He promises himself that. And he knows that the Orpheum isn’t that far away. It’s been Luke’s dream since forever, so Reggie _knows_ he’ll have to admit it, he just doesn’t know exactly how much time he has to prepare for the outcome of whatever happens after the confession.

One day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Liked it? I personally like the promise. That promise is for dummies, and I love the "After the Orpheum" plans that are shown in lots of fics because it's, basically just the reader cackling at the promise they know won't get fulfilled on original terms. 
> 
> :)


	10. Orpheum, Baby!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I procrastinated writing this chapter for like three days, then wrote it all in one sitting, which is kind of sad since it's really not a long chapter (700 words exactly.) BUT, they die, so it's worth the shortness of it.  
> Oh, and I curse a lot in this chapter, but they're dying, so what do you expect?  
> Semi-graphic death. It has the beginning of it, but honestly, I'm squeamish, so I don't think it's that bad at all.
> 
> Read on!

_“I want to be your soulmate, even if I don’t believe in them.” —Colleen Hoover_

“Chill man, street-dogs haven’t killed us yet,” Reggie says only moments before shoving the rest of his hotdog down his throat. And then they all bought another one because they were hungry, even though the hotdogs tasted disgusting. It didn’t take long for them to begin to feel sick.

The sickness starts with Reggie. It’s just a little stomach pain, burning in his side, and it felt like his chest was being sucked in, but other than that, he felt fine and dandy. And his headache was all just in a days work, and if it’s harder to breathe, it’s no one’s fault but his own. So, he just pretends as if he doesn’t feel like he’s dying from pain, because they have the Orpheum in about two hours.

They make it to the greenroom, waiting for Bobby to show up so they can do their pre-show rituals which includes pep-talks and insane amounts of bouncing off the walls, trying to save their energy for the performance. When Bobby walks in, he looks at them and says, “You guys don’t look too good.”

Reggie looks to his friends and Bobby’s right. They don’t look good either. Alex tries to brush it off. “Just stomach pains. And chest pains. And I feel like I might throw up, but that part is probably just nerves.”

Luke adds, “Now that you mention it, I see what Bobby’s talking about. You guys don’t look so well, and I don’t feel good either.” Luke leans back on the couch. “And I have a gnarly headache.”

“Maybe you guys are sick.”

Alex shakes it off. “Nah, I felt fine earlier.”

It’s only when Reggie runs to the small bathroom in the greenroom to throw up does he realize that this isn’t just a little problem. He feels like he’s _dying_ and he may have exaggerated that before, but now he could probably die and he’d completely understand why.

Everything that happens after that is a blur of events that take both a million years and only a few seconds.

Bobby calls 911 and the others throw up too. And Reggie hears Bobby screaming something about blood and to “ _Fucking stand up and tell me it’s a joke because you can’t die, not now, not ever, not without me!_ ” And Bobby’s still screaming something at the phone and he hears sirens.

Soon the three of them are all crowded next to each other, actually dying, and not saying anything because it hurts. Bobby is a few feet away, screaming at the phone to get 911 there faster. Luke says, “Guys, hey, listen.” He glances at Bobby to make sure Bobby can’t hear, because Reggie _knows_ that Bobby already feels excluded, and dying together seems to tie the knot. And then Luke, being Luke, tries to comfort him and Alex, saying the dreaded words. Those words he’s grown to fucking despise. _“Hey, at least we’ll all be together.”_

And Reggie almost throws up again because he can’t handle hearing those words. He’s about to reply, to try and change the words, make Luke say _anything_ else, when paramedics burst in start dragging them apart. Luke’s hand barely touches Reggie’s arm, right where the soulmark is, and Reggie hates to call it fate because fate is cruel and a stupid thing to believe in. An oxygen mask covers Reggie’s mouth halfway through him saying, “Of course the fucking soulmark is about you.”

It’s the last fucking words they say to each other because they’re dying and oxygen masks are covering their faces and they can’t say anything else.

And yeah, Reggie promised to tell Luke after the Orpheum, but now there is no Orpheum to play and no promise to fulfill when they’re _dead_ and soulmarks don’t exist anymore because they. are. dead.

And maybe what sucked most of all, was that Luke was right there the entire time, hardly ever more than a few inches apart, and they were _soulmates_ but Reggie did nothing about it.

And somehow, that’s all he’s able to think about when he’s dying.

Soulmates.

Fuck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy? Now, let's deal with more pining and soulmark drama as ghosts!!! This'll be fun!


	11. Oh, A Second Chance...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I wrote most of the ghost section as one big chapter, but I got antsy and wanted to post the first part that I vaguely edited. I'll have the next chapter out tomorrow, so I hope that a few short chapters within a twelve-hour span will make up for it the lack of one big chapter posted a few days from now...
> 
> Read on!

_"They stood there pretending to be just friends when all the while everyone in the room could plainly see that they were only existing for each other.” —Emma Blake_

They come back as ghosts because of a girl named Julie. Reggie calls her a witch. But she’s more of an angel. The type that come in disguise, making you feel better when you need it most, always around to save them, never once being anything less than a miracle to Reggie and all the boys. Reggie’s only known Julie for a few days, and he’s already decided that he loves her just as much as he loves Alex, Bobby, and Luke.

But of course there are complications.

Alex is around less and less because he found Willie, a boy who he loves. Alex refuses to even admit they’re dating, because Willie doesn’t know, but he came back from meeting him for the first time and said that he’s found his soulmate. “I died from a hotdog. He decides that it’s mynew nickname, and I hate it.” Alex sighs. “No, I don’t. I could never hate it.”

Julie’s a lifer, and she’ll grow old while they all stay ghosts. He loves a person that will have to move on from all of them.

Bobby is probably out there too, forty-three years old now. A life without them. Reggie wishes him only the best, hoping that his best friend found his soulmates, whoever they may be.

And Luke. Well, Reggie is in love with Luke. But Luke doesn’t know. Reggie tried to mention it to him. “Luke… um… do you remember what you said when you were dying?”

Luke’s eyes go dark. He twists his ring. “No, not really. Why?”

“Oh, well, it’s just that um..” Reggie tugs at his bracelets on his arm, revealing the mark, and he sees that it’s changed. It’s not the words he once knew to be there. “Never-mind. I was just wondering. Got to go talk to Ray! Bye!” Reggie poofs out, not to Ray, but to the docks.

He stares at the sunrise, not admiring it’s beauty like he normally would, but instead panicking and refusing to look at the new words. He doesn’t want to know them. He just knows that they aren’t the same chicken scratch letters that they used to be, forming the words _Hey, at least we’ll all be together._ He finally gives in and reads the words, no longer what they used to be and are now chicken scratch letters forming the words, _Are you sure you’re ready?_ These words don’t bring him the same dread he’s used to.

These seem so blissfully calm. Happy. Like nothing would be better than these words because there is something about it.

Reggie loves it. And he loves it even better knowing that the words come from Luke. He just needs to tell him.

But of course, when he’s ready to tell Luke, he realizes that he’s too late. He poofs into the studio, Luke and Julie sitting at the piano, not touching, but if Luke was alive, they’d be on top of each other. They’re songwriting. And by the looks of it, probably flirting as well. Reggie poofs right back out.

He knows he’s being ridiculous. Luke’s his actual, literal soulmate, so obviously they’ll end up together, but he can’t help but wonder if that’s what Luke wants; to be in love with Reggie, when Julie, the witch or angel or whatever you choose to call her, right there. She’s amazing. And Luke deserves that amazing. So, if Julie is who he loves, then Julie is who he should be paired with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I know the timeline is out of wack just a little, but I hope you rolled with it..
> 
> :)


	12. Luke's Soulmark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who got new soulmarks???  
> And, I posted a chapter last night at like 12:30, and I'm just making sure you read that and aren't accidentally skipping a chapter because I posted at an awful hour of the night.
> 
> Read on!

_“Friendship isn’t about who you’ve known the longest, it’s about who walked into your life, said ‘I’m here for you,’ and proved it.”_ _—_ _Unknown_

Luke poofs barely inches away from Reggie’s face and says, “I’ve got a soulmark!”

Reggie almost falls back. “What?”

Luke throws himself on the couch and shoves his foot in Reggie’s face. Reggie shoves it away. “It’s disgusting, get your foot away, man!”

Luke ignores his protests and continues to shove his foot in Reggie’s face. “Dude! It’s my soulmark.”

And Reggie stops trying to protest, and actually takes a moment to look at the words on Luke’s foot. And it’s even in Reggie’s fucking handwriting. Luke says the words like a giddy child. “ _As long as I’m with you._ ” Luke jumps up and down. “Dude, I have a soulmate! And I’m dead!”

And as Luke rambles on and on about who they might look like, Reggie can only seem to think about how Luke’s words go so beautifully with his. Luke doesn’t even notice Reggie pull down his bracelets and read the words that Luke will say to him. _Are you sure you’re ready?_ And Reggie whispers the words he knows he’ll say one day again, “As long as I’m with you.”

After a few minutes, Luke stops mid-rant. “Oh, shit, Reg, I’m sorry.”

Reggie looks up to see Luke looking at him with sad eyes. “What for?”

Luke sits down next to Reggie. “You had a soulmark when you were alive, which means that they probably won’t know you as a ghost. I’m sorry, man.”

Reggie almost laughs out loud. But he doesn’t. “Nah, it’s fine. I…um… I got new words?” Reggie rubs the back of his neck. “Um, yeah, I got new words.”

Luke grins again and pulls Reggie in for a hug. “I can’t wait for the ghost you meet to sweep you off your feet!”

Reggie silently thinks _he already has_. But he doesn’t. Instead, he just melts into Luke’s hug, allowing him to enjoy it and pretend that Luke Knows right now. Reggie’s going to tell him soon. As soon as he can figure out how…

Then Luke breaks the hug. “I’ve got to go find Julie and tell her, man!” Luke poofs away and Reggie’s mood dampers a little. Of course he wants Julie to know.

Reggie falls back onto the couch and Alex poofs in. He notices a clearly distressed Reggie and sits next to him. Reggie groans and throws his head onto Alex’s lap.

“So, what is it this time?”

Reggie just groans in response.

“Luke?”

Reggie just groans louder.

“I’m taking that as a yes.”

Reggie groans again because he doesn’t want to form actual human words that probably won’t make much sense because he knows he’s in love with Luke and Luke’s his soulmate, but Luke doesn’t realize it yet, so Reggie doesn’t really want to pressure Luke into anything that Luke isn’t ready for, especially when he’s super infatuated with Julie.

“What?” Alex asks.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Yeah, you did. And I quote, ‘he’s super infatuated with Julie.’”

Reggie groans again because he said that out loud. “Shit.”

“You _do_ realize that Luke’s not in love with Julie, or infatuated, as you put it, right? Like, he’s not in love with her.”

Reggie ignores that, because Luke might not be in love with Julie, but he thinks he is, so Reggie shouldn’t stop him. His mind can’t seem to think up a solid reasoning for anything, so he just goes with whatever reason makes the most sense for the situation. Earlier, Luke was most definitely in love with Julie. Now, it’s only that Luke thinks he’s in love with Julie. But who cares, right?

Reggie blurts after a moment. “He’s my soulmate!”

Alex raises his eyebrows at him. “I know.”

“What! How?”

“You’re in love with him and we’re ghosts. There aren’t many other options. And, if I recall, he said the words on your wrist?” Reggie stands up and bangs his head on the wall. “Dude, stop that. You’ll hurt yourself.”

“I’m dead.”

“Yeah, but ghosts might be able to get injuries. There is no logic to this disaster.”

“I’m dead. I just want to bang my head.”

And Alex doesn’t say anything and Reggie gets to bang his head. But he loses concentration so he falls through the wall and falls face forward on the cement. He hears Alex laugh from inside. Reggie poofs on top of Alex’s shoulders to scare him, and Alex screeches so loud that him dropping Reggie is so worth it. Alex screams a few choice words at him before taking a deep breath and settling down. “Now, if we can get back to your soulmate, that would be nice. But you distracted me.”

“What else do you want to know?” Reggie drawls.

“I don’t know…Like when are you going to tell him?” Alex says, dripping with sarcasm.

“When he gets over Julie.”

Alex throws his hands up in the air. “For the last time! Luke isn’t in love with Julie!”

“How do you know?”

Alex sighs and mumbles something about awful perception skills before he says more loudly, “You’ll see. Besides, Julie’s already taken.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh.” Then Alex poofs out right after he says that he’s trying to find Luke and Julie.Reggie doesn’t even have time to warn him that Luke got his soulmark and is showing it off to _everyone_ he can.

Reggie runs his hand over his face and groans (again, because all he can seem to think is _AAAHHHHHHH_.)

He poofs back out to the docks and sits there, admiring the laughter of happy people all around him. When the daytime crowd of the beach disappears, there are only couples and a few teenagers with their friends. And he watches the sunset. It reminds him of the day when he came up with the sunset part of their band name and all he could think about was warm evenings on the beach, wishing he could rest his head on Luke’s shoulder and hold his hand and kiss him softly and tell him that he’s everything he ever needs, which at this point is kind of true. He doesn’t need anything that normal humans need, so all that he’s left with is emotions, and a great majority of them are directed towards the one and only Luke Patterson.

He rubs the words on his wrist and leans back on the dock, staring at the stars slowly appearing in the sky. _Soon,_ Reggie promises himself, _I’ll tell him soon_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter is the chemistry scene. You know the one. And then after that is them getting their shit together. I promise.
> 
> :)


	13. Chemistry Scene (You Know The One...)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so it's the chemistry scene and pining, then the next chapter is confessions.   
> Also, this is like the third chapter that I've posted today, so make sure you've read the prior chapters so you're not missing anything, my loves. ❤️  
> Oh, and I didn't edit, so I hope it all makes sense!  
> Read on and enjoy!

_"If I could only control time, I’ll go back to the moment when we first met, not to change anything, but to experience it all over again.” —www.loveandsayings.com_

Of course, Reggie figures out how to fuck everything up even when literally nothing can be fucked up. And it starts with trying to make Alex feel better about Willie.

“I know it’s tough man. People say you never forget your first ghost. Maybe that’s true. But I’m sure there will be others.”

Alex just shakes his head. “Even if there were others, they wouldn’t be Willie. He came up with the nickname ‘hotdog.’ It must be him. And…I’ve never felt this way for anyone, so…”

Luke tries to cut into what Reggie likes to call Alex’s spiral of deep and utter loathing of his love life. “And Alex, you’re a great drummer and a great guy. I wouldn’t let all that stuff get in between you and what you love. So what if he’s your soulmate? You have us.”

Reggie, being himself adds in some _completely_ unnecessary commentary that alters his definition of stupidity. “I dunno man, sometimes a little fire can make things better on stage. Like you and Julie~.” And Reggie has no idea why he said that. Hadn’t Alex said that Julie was already taken? But in reality, he knows he’s saying it because he’s being completely and utterly jealous and bitter, all underneath a mask of jokingness.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Come on, everyone can see the way you look at her when you sing. You guys ooze chemistry.” At this point, he’s probably burning a hole through Luke because he’s glaring so hard. But of course, the glaring is masked by the ever-so present jokingness.

Alex would normally back Reggie up, like he does now, but of course the one moment where Reggie doesn’t want to be backed up, he’s backing him up. “You should never say ooze again. But yeah, I agree.” Alex is probably taunting him, telling Reggie that he should just go for it and get the embarrassment over with.

“No. I have chemistry with everyone I sing with.” It’s fun to mess everything up for himself. Because then Luke has to go and prove his point because _heaven forbid_ Luke loses an argument. Exhibit A: Unsaid Emily. Reggie can’t _wait_ to see what stupid thing Luke does that proves his point this time. “Seriously, watch!”

Reggie could probably pull out popcorn and sit back to watch Luke do the stupid thing, but _no_ , he has to be actively _involved_ in it. “~I believe, I believe that we’re just one dream. Away from who we’re~…” the rest of the words just kind of fade out because Luke is inches away from his face. Like, he could reach forward and kiss him, type of few inches away. And Luke’s hand is on his neck like he’s about to kiss him. And gosh, he feels like he’s about to melt into jelly or something. Maybe become the water that jellyfish swim in or something.

Reggie sees Luke softly gasp and lean back half an inch, like he just realized something, something really important. But he doesn’t comment on it because then Reggie vaguely hears Alex saying something. And all Reggie can think is _this is it. This is when I tell him. Just kiss him. He’s my soulmate._ But alas, he doesn’t.

Instead, he says something that he doesn’t even understand. “That was pretty hot.” Hot? What does hot even mean? Why did he choose that word of all words? He never quite understood what hot feels like besides the temperature, but he’s secretly read enough romance novels that he believes hot is when a person is really close to you and you have urges to kiss them and do more and…Reggie’s never quite understood that. Like wanting to do more makes sense, but to have another person trigger the start of the event by doing something ‘hot’ doesn’t click in his mind. What Luke did made him weak at the knees and want to kiss him and to tell him they’re soulmates, but to do more…Why? He’d rather have band practice. Or cuddle. Or talk.

Well, Luke being ever the flirt, kisses Reggie first. Well, not exactly kissing. Luke touches Luke’s fingers to his lips and then to Reggie’s. It’s like a second-hand kiss, where you still get the effects of it, just not as severe as if you were to get it first-hand. Like smoking.

And Reggie isn’t quite processing the world around him. He needs to focus on practice. Because he forgot his point, and it would be better to tell Luke that they’re soulmates later. Reggie clears his throat. He says the first thing that pops into his head. “Girls, am I right?” Of course that’s the first thing that popped into his head. He said it every time the guys accused him of liking Luke. He tried to remind himself that there were girls out there. So, by habit of course, he said the dreaded words of “Girls, am I right?”

Luke looks at him with sad eyes that Reggie doesn’t quite understand and replies with a sharp tone, “Yeah.”

Alex chimes in, “No.” And honestly, mood. (Julie taught him that lingo.) Not the ‘not girls part’ that Alex is saying, but more of the implications of the ‘actually it’s guys’ that’s behind it. Because Reggie agrees with his statement and Alex’s even if that doesn’t quite make sense, but it does in his head, so he lets it be.

Luke doesn’t look him in the eyes the rest of practice. And he much less gestures for him to share the microphone like Luke normally does during practices and performances. It stings. Despite the fact that it stings, Reggie’s glad because he doesn’t think he would be able to resist leaning forward and kissing Luke.

————————

As soon as practice is over, Reggie poofs away to the docks and he vaguely hears Luke saying something about Julie. Of course. Lovely Julie. Angel Julie. Reggie doesn’t know why he’s still so jealous. He encouraged Luke to go after Julie. And Julie’s already taken! Why can’t he do anything right?

Alex poofs beside him on the dock. Alex nudges their shoulders together. He doesn’t say anything, and waits for Reggie to speak first. “What happened in there?” Reggie asks.

Alex breathily chuckles. “I should be asking _you_ about that.”

“I don’t know. I got jealous, I guess.”

“For no reason.”

“Does Luke know that Julie has a soulmate?”

“Yeah. She has two.”

Reggie almost falls off the dock from shock. “Two?”

Alex nods. “Yeah, she’s like 99% sure that one of them is Flynn because Flynn recently got two marks too. And then she says she has another mark, but she doesn’t know who it is. She’s lying about it, but that’ll be for her to figure out in her own time. I would help her, but I need to help you and your pining self for like the fifth year in a row.”

“I hate you.”

“I hate you too, dumbass.” There’s a few seconds before Alex asks, “So now are you going to tell him?”

Reggie scoffs. “Who do you mistake me for? Of course not.”

“When?”

Reggie says it so seamlessly as if he had made the promise only yesterday, “After the Orpheum.”

“Dude, we might disappear before we play the Orpheum. We might not even _play_ the Orpheum. We’ve been Julie and The Phantoms for like two weeks. That might takes years! Please don’t put me through years more of pining.”

“You think I want to go through this too?”

Alex throws his hands in the air. “Then why don’t you tell him?! Honestly, talking to you always makes me so stressed!”

Reggie rolls his eyes. “I’m going to go talk to Ray.”

“But…okay.”

Reggie’s a coward. He knows he is.

————————

LUKE:

His face is barely inches away from Reggie’s and he realizes what an idiot he is. He has a crush on Reggie. For how long? How didn’t he see this before? They’ve been friends since they were fourteen. Did he like Reggie since day one? He could always tell when he had crushes on girls (or boys) from his class, so how couldn’t he tell that he liked Reggie?

It’s Reggie for crying out loud! How they ran into each other when they first met, and Luke could only think about him the rest of the day and Luke sat down next to them at lunch and discovered his band. And Reggie who got braces a few weeks after they met, and looking back, he was so young. And Luke wrote a song (Crooked Teeth) about it once Reggie got his braces off, because maybe Luke missed them just a little. And how Luke would always want Reggie first when he was upset. And how Reggie’s snort after laughing too long was the cutest thing in the world. And how Reggie helped Luke cut all the sleeves and necklines off of his shirts after Luke had an anxiety attack and the sleeves and necklines made it too hard to breathe. And how Reggie would be patient and go through all the schoolwork with him, even when he didn’t want to, just to help Luke prevent another fight about school and the band with Emily that week. And when Reggie (and the rest of the band) was there after Luke freaked out about Sarah. And basically everything that Reggie has ever done.

And shit. He can’t crush on Reg. Reggie has a soulmate out there. Probably a cute ghost. Reggie even said that he got new words. And Luke can never tell him because Reggie has a soulmate, and he knows for a _fact_ that it’s not him.

Luke finishes proving his chemistry, half-kissing Reggie, just so he could maybe kiss Reggie since he knows he’ll never be able to again.

Reggie says some comment about liking girls, and Luke feels a brick drop in his chest and he sarcastically says, “Yeah.” Of course, the second that Luke realizes he likes Reggie, Reggie has to go make some comment about liking girls. Great.

Alex chimes, “No!” And Luke snorts. Because honestly, boys. Reggie in particular. Definitely Reggie in particular.

As soon as practice is over, Luke poofs out after saying, “I’m gonna going to go talk to Julie.”

Reggie poofs out at the same time as him, probably to go talk to Ray. He knows that Julie is riding the bus home today, so he poofs on the bus. As soon as he spots Julie, he poofs right next to her. She turns her head. “It’s like I can’t get away from you three.” She puts her headphones in and says, “So, what did you want to talk about?”

Luke blurts the first thing that comes to mind because this is _Julie_ and she can probably help because she’s had her soulmarks since she was born, and she has Flynn, so it’s not like she’ll make him feel bad about his crush. “I have a crush on Reggie.”

“I know.”

“What?! I didn’t find out till like two hours ago.”

“You got your soulmark, and when you were describing who you wanted your soulmate to be like, you described Reggie. Personality-wise, and then you wished that whoever your soulmate is, had freckles and dark hair. I thought you were avoiding saying his name because you didn’t want me to know yet. I didn’t realize you didn’t know you have a crush on Reggie.”

“It’s Reggie! Of course I didn’t know!”

“Honestly, you’re probably soulmates.”

“But Reggie already has a mark.”

“And so do you.”

“But they don’t match!”

“I thought you said Reggie never showed anyone his soulmark except for Alex and Bobby, and now even Alex doesn’t know the new words. How do you know they don’t match?”

She has a point, and Luke hates to agree, so he doesn’t. Luke leans back on the seat and sighs. “Because he had different words when he was alive. He _had_ a soulmate.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

After a few moments of silence, Julie says, “He looks at you like you’ve hung the stars moon and the whole darn galaxy.”

“No, he doesn’t.”

“Yeah, he does.”

“No, he doesn’t.”

“So are you going to tell him?”

Luke whips his head to look directly into her eyes. “Are you crazy?! No way!”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s _Reggie_. I can’t tell him! He’ll panic and run away or he’ll panic and agree with me because he doesn’t want to upset anyone, even if it upsets himself in the process. He wouldn’t want to hurt my feelings, and I can’t force all that onto him.”

“Boys are idiots. That’s why my soulmates are girls.”

“You said you don’t know who your other soulmate is.”

“Flynn’s a lesbian. The other person is _obviously_ a girl. Either way, boys are idiots and you should just tell him.”

“You’re just supposed to listen to me rant about my crush, not force me to tell him, that’s pretty rude of you.”

Julie sighs and laughs. She rolls her eyes and says, “Okay, then tell me about him.”

“I don’t even know where to start.”

She taps her knee for a moment then says, “Tell me how you met.”

And so Luke does.

_Hey Siri, is it possible to be head over heels in love with someone who isn’t your soulmate?_

_Yes._

Shit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up is confessions! And I hope you liked the disaster chemistry scene, because both of them are messes...
> 
> :)


	14. Reg. Love. Soulmate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I WROTE THE CONFESSIONS SCENE! AND I PERSONALLY THINK IT'S BEAUTIFUL, BUT I'M THE AUTHOR SO IT'S A BIASED OPINION! I almost cut this chapter in two and posted the second half tomorrow, just to make you guys suffer, but I didn't really want people out to murder me, so here we are: confessions chapter posted at 11:30 at night.
> 
> I read through it, but didn't formally edit it. *shrugs*
> 
> ENJOY AND CRY BECAUSE THE IDIOTS GOT THEIR SHIT TOGETHER!!

_“‘Our souls already know each other, don’t they?’ he whispered. ‘It’s our bodies that are new.’”—Karen Ross_

They book the Orpheum. Sure, they sabotage a tour bus on the way and do a whole bunch of ghosty stuff to get booked, but they make the Orpheum.

Again.

Because if they don’t, they vanish. For good. And they’ll play the Orpheum and cross over, and Reggie will never need to tell Luke because they will have crossed over immediately after.

And Reggie’s very excited to play the Orpheum with Julie, but a small, minuscule part of him wishes that it was Bobby playing it with him. He wonders if Bobby, or Trevor, or whoever he is now, ever played the Orpheum. It’s not the most pleasant thought, because every scenario is sad to him, so he simply stops thinking about it.

They play the Orpheum.

They don’t cross over.

They all lock eyes when they feel a jolt coming on, and they know that they’re not going to make it to the other side. They poof back to the studio and collapse on a pile next to the piano. It hurts to move or do more, so they don’t.

The entire thing is déjà vu. It hurts to move and speak and there’s a tense air running around them because they _know_ what’s coming. He can almost feel himself in the greenroom again where he was dying, moments before the paramedics got to them and tried to keep them alive. They only survived for about another half-hour. Reggie knows that Luke is going to say the words and Reggie will say them in return, and they’ll die… again. The only problem is that Reggie _thought—knew—_ that the words would mean something good, so why are they dying right now? This isn’t good. This is the opposite from good.

The only thing missing from this whole scene is Bobby.

Bobby gripping their hands while shakily calling 911.

Bobby shaking and sobbing and holding them.

Bobby standing up so he can scream at the paramedics to get there faster, because he doesn’t want to be screaming in their ears as well as the phone.

Bobby being shoved aside as the paramedics arrive.

Bobby never saying goodbye.

And Reggie’s glad that Bobby isn’t here again, because Bobby shouldn’t have ever had to see them die the first time. And if Bobby was here, Reggie doesn’t know how he would be able to survive the heartbreak. Reggie wonders if Bobby really stole their music, or if it was all just miscommunication.

But he doesn’t really have the _time_ to wonder that because he made a promise to himself. A promise to tell Luke. He’s already wasted so much time. They’ll disappear soon.

Reggie finds Luke’s hand in the dark and squeezes it. “Hey,” he whispers.

Luke croaks back, “Hey.”

Reggie tries to find the words. He doesn’t know how to tell Luke. Luke speaks first. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

“No. I need to tell you something first. I promised that I would, a few months before we died. I would tell you after we played the Orpheum. Well, we played the Orpheum.” He chuckles, but it comes out strained and hurt and sore. Reggie can’t find the words to say it.

Luke comforts him. “Hey, you can tell me. Anything. I promise. I’m always here for you, and I always will be, no matter where that may be.”

They get another jolt and they all groan. The jolts are getting worse. And it’s always on his chest and his stomach, the places it hurt most when he was dying the first time via hotdogs. Reggie curls just slightly closer to Luke.

Reggie forgot that he was going to say something. Luke didn’t.

“Reg, what were you going to tell me?” Luke asks, obviously pained.

Reggie tries to search for the words. At last he settles on, “I’m sorry. I…I should have told you this sooner, but I was a coward…”

“Woah, what are you apologizing for? You didn’t do anything wrong."

Reggie takes a deep breath. “I already asked you, but I just…Do you remember what you said the night we died, before the paramedics arrived?”

“No. I already said. I don’t remember. Why?” Luke turns to look Reggie in the eyes, and they barely show in the dark. His eyes aren’t bright and full of life like he’s used to seeing.

Reggie squeezes his eyes shut. “I do. I remember.” He falls silent. It’s so hard to say it.

“Why? What’s so special about what I said, Reg?”

Reggie opens his mouth to tell him, but then they hear a car pull into the driveway and the Molina’s get out. Alex shushes them, and Reggie stays silent. “We don’t want her to come to the studio.” Reggie forgot that Alex was next to them, listening to the entire conversation unfold, but he doesn’t mind anymore. They’re dying, so it’s not like they were going to kick Alex out so Reggie could tell Luke. Reggie would rather not tell Luke than kick Alex out, because they still love him, even if it’s differently. But it doesn’t matter anymore because Reggie waited too long, and they might cease to exist by the time they can talk again.

They think that Julie will just go straight up to bed, thinking they crossed over, but of course she doesn’t. She opens the studio doors and starts speaking to them. Reggie can’t let her think they crossed over. That’s unfair to her. “You’re welcome.” She flicks the lights on and sees them all piled on the floor, the other two groaning and scolding Reggie for speaking.

He doesn’t quite understand why the three of them get up, trying to act like they don’t feel as bad as they do. Luke stumbles forward and Reggie vaguely remembers saying something along the lines of “Point Caleb.” Julie launches forward and hugs Luke. She hugs Luke. Luke. Hugs him. A million things run through his mind, one of them being, _of course, it’s Luke. We’re soulmates, and he doesn’t even know, and he loves Julie. Like always._ And the other thoughts are, _JULIE HUGGED LUKE AND WE’RE GHOSTS! HOW DID SHE DO THAT? WHY DIDN’T SHE PASS THROUGH?!! WHAT’S HAPPENING???!_

She gestures for all of them to join the hug, and they all fall into it, feeling a thousand times stronger than before.

And they’re saved.

Just like that.

A hug.

And they’re saved.

Okay.

Wow.

That’s totally normal.

It’s not as if they’re ghosts and were dying for a second time.

Not that at all.

And Reggie _still_ hasn’t told Luke.

And he survived, so now he kind of has to. He played the Orpheum, and he has the time to tell Luke, so he has no choice. The thought makes him a little nauseous as well as giddy. He’s going to tell Luke, and he won’t have to hide how he’s feeling anymore. It might not be perfect, but it’s Luke, and he would rather Luke over perfect any day.

After the hug, Julie looks at them all, practically glowing just like the rest of them were moments before, and laughs. “You’re still here.” A few tears fall from her eyes and Alex wipes them away for her, and for a moment he can see Bobby doing the same for all of them. She bounces on her toes and says, “I have to go back to the house. I promised Dad I wouldn’t be long.” She hesitates for a moment before saying, “I’m going to go shower because I still smell like sweat, but when I settle in for bed, you’re all allowed upstairs for a cuddle pile.” They all kind of relax a little. They don’t really want to be away from Julie for too long in case they disappear when she leaves. She walks out, waving her hand.

The three of them cheer. “Dude! We actually survived!” Alex crows. And Alex turns to Reggie and raises his eyebrows. “We played the Orpheum!” Reggie knows that he was trying to tell Reggie that he can’t back out now.

Reggie will do it. He just doesn’t quite want Alex to hear now that he has the choice. Luke poofs to the loft and tosses them down all sleepwear. Which for them was sweatpants, Luke wearing another muscle tee, Alex wearing a hoodie, and Reggie stealing Alex’s backup backup hoodie because he doesn’t want to wear a tank-top.

They don’t stink or smell like sweat, but instead smell like their old clothes, which is odd because none of this fits logic, just like surviving the jolts doesn’t fit logic.

Reggie curls up on the couch, waiting for the others to join him, waiting for when they can go to Julie’s room. Alex sits in the loft, pretending to look preoccupied, and Luke launches himself on the couch, almost smushing Reggie. They wiggle around a bit until they’re comfortable, curling up until you can’t tell who’s leg is who’s and which arm belongs to which body. Reggie ruffles up Luke’s hair and says, “It looks better like this.”

Luke rubs his thumb over the back of Reggie’s hand. Luke is actually the one to speak first about the whole…trying to confess incident. He speaks kind of carefully. “You said that you wanted to tell me something. Um, do you still want to?”

Reggie sighs. “Of course I do. I, um, actually, I need to tell you. See…I’ve kind of known for a while, but I didn’t want to pressure you and make you hate me and make you uncomfortable, when clearly you didn’t remember, and I can’t really prove it now, but I promise that Alex would be able to back me up, and I don’t really know how to say it, but…um…” He trails off again. Why is it so hard to tell Luke?

“Reg, I believe you. I don’t need proof.” He hesitates then adds, “And I could never hate you.”

“But—”

“No buts.”

Reggie takes a deep breath. “It’s time I told you my soulmark. The old one.”

Luke stops rubbing his thumb over Reggie’s hand. “Really? Why now?”

Reggie takes an awfully shaky breath. “The words were _Hey, at least we’ll all be together._ …Those words…Well, those were actually the last words you said to us. To me. And then…well, we died.”

Luke backs away and lets out some sad sort of whimper. “And you don’t want me. It’s okay. I’ve heard of platonic soulmates. That’s probably what we are.” Luke furiously wipes at his eyes, obviously trying to hide the tears from Reggie.

Reggie scrambles closer to him. “What! No! I do want you!”

Luke stops backing away. Instead he just shrinks in on himself. “Then why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t want to force you!” Reggie looks down and absentmindedly rubs at his wrist where the words are. “I know you don’t like me.”

Then it’s Luke’s turn to reassure Reggie. He cups Reggie’s face in his hands. “How could I not like you? I love you. Fuck, I’m in love with you….I just thought that you said your soulmate was someone else.”

“It’s you. Since we met. I’ve always known, even if I didn’t want to believe it.” Reggie quickly scrambles to say something before Luke takes it the wrong way, “Well, I wanted it to be you, but I knew my words were bad, so I didn’t want it to be you because I didn’t want to drag you down with my soulmark and then we died by hotdogs, so I guess I was right, but now we're back as ghosts and I have a new soulmark.” Reggie says it all in one breath. “I love you.”

Luke takes Reggie’s hands in his own and rests his forehead against Reggie’s. “We’re both messes.”

Reggie wetly laughs. “I know.”

Then, “What are your words? Your new ones. I mean, if you want to tell me.”

“Of course I want to tell you. I’ve always wanted to tell you…I was just a little scared. I didn’t want to ever hear the words spoken aloud. But now, I don’t fear it as much.”

Luke pulls off his sock and reads the words aloud in a whisper. “ _Are you sure you’re ready?”_

Reggie pulls down the bracelets on his wrist and reads the words, “ _As long as I’m with you.”_

Luke laughs and whispers sounding as happy as he’s ever been. “The words match!”

Reggie nods and adds, “We’re going to be ready to cross over together, and I can just tell that these words are amazing. A second chance. It’s perfect.” Reggie looks up into Luke’s bright hazel eyes and smiles. Luke leans forward into a hug, and Reggie holds on so tight. He clutches the fabric of Luke’s shirt and buries his head into Luke’s shoulder.

“You actually want me,” Luke whispers like he can’t believe it.

“Of course I do…How could I not?”

They stay hugging for a while before Reggie leans back a little bit and mumbles, “I’ve waited years to ask this… Can I kiss you?”

Luke softly nods while leaning in to kiss him. Gosh, Luke’s lips are chapped like he’s never put on chapstick a single time in his entire existence, but the fact that it’s Luke erases all of that from his mind. After a few indecipherable moments of time, they lean back and Luke giggles. (Yes, giggles. Gosh, it’s a beautiful sound.) “You kissed me.” He sounds like a little kid that was given a puppy. Basically, completely and fully happy.

It takes Reggie a moment to realize that he’s giggling as well.

Alex calls from the loft, “Did you get your shit together yet?”

Reggie laughs and falls back a bit, bringing Luke with him, the two of them laying on the couch still laughing. “I told him!”

Alex cheers. “THANK GOD! I don’t think I could have stood another moment of Luke not realizing he has a crush on you, and you refusing to tell Luke for over thirty years!”

Luke flips Alex off and pecks Reggie on the lips mid-laugh. Reggie gives another little kiss back. After getting over their laughing, they settle down into some sort of cuddle/hug and they just whisper words back and forth to each other, telling each other about the most random nonsense.

Then Luke says, “Reg, I love you so much. Soulmate. Gosh, I’ll never get tired of saying that. Soulmate. You’re my soulmate.”

“Well, soulmate, I hope you don’t forget my real name because you say soulmate so much.”

“As if, Reg. Love. Soulmate.”

“Soulmates.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked it!!   
> They actually confessed and got their shit together!!!! Oh, and if you're wondering about Alex, he was eavesdropping as a fed-up friend would. He didn't go search for Willie yet since they're joining Julie for cuddle piles and he's pretty tired for the night.
> 
> :)


	15. Cuddles and Chaos

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is kind of a plotless chapter. But I don't really care because they're being all cute and dramatic and all. The entire chapter consists of Luke being a little shit, Reggie being all sweet, Alex being sarcastic and annoyed, and Julie rambling about her soulmarks.   
> Not edited, but it is read over to make sure it makes general sense... *Shrugs*
> 
> Oh, and it's not important to mention, but I got really into telling Julie's story. It WILL be fleshed out in Julie, Carrie, and Flynn's part of the series, but I got carried away. Sorry not sorry.
> 
> Read on and enjoy, my loves!

They feel like Julie’s calling to them, almost like a tug, like when they played the Orpheum and they just _knew_ that Julie needed them. “Cuddles with Julie?”

Luke nods. “Hell yeah.”

They catch Alex’s eyes from the loft and they poof off to Julie’s room at the same time. Alex poofs to be standing next to the bed, and Luke and Reggie just poof directly on the bed and land with a laugh. Julie turns around from the window to see them laughing, Luke very much trying to get Reggie to laugh by tickling him. “Dude! Stop! That tickles! Luke! Babe!”

Luke only laughs harder and Julie sits down next to them, Alex helping Reggie hold Luke back. Julie smiles at them and gives them this glance like she knows what’s up, but she wants to story behind it. “Babe?” It sounds like she’s barely able to hold in a laugh.

Reggie blushes furiously and Luke proudly nods and grabs Reggie’s hand. “He likes me back!”

Julie lets out the laugh she was holding in. “Of course he does.”

Alex sits next to Julie and says, “I wasn’t the only one who noticed that they looked at each other like they hung all the stars in the whole fucking sky, right?”

“Actually, I think I said something like that to Luke the other day, so obviously. They’re so far gone for each other.”

They both argue, “Hey! We weren’t that bad.”

“Yes you were!” Alex and Julie argue back.

Alex says, “So are we going to acknowledge that that was kind of creepy?”

They all half-heartedly agree before Julie says, “So, tell me how you two got together!”

Reggie leans back into Luke’s arms and continues to hold his hand. “Weeeelllll, I kind of promised myself I would tell him after we played the Orpheum…back in 1994. So I kind of had to stick to the promise.”

Julie groans. “Oh, Alex, how many years did the pining last?”

“Freshman year. Literally the day they met.”

Luke protests. “Hey, I didn’t know till like last week! You’ve got to cut me some slack here.”

Reggie says, “Well, in my defense, I didn’t know he was my soulmate until we died, so sorry if I held off some details until later because I _died_. And then almost died again. It’s not really my fault”

Julie’s eyes go wide. “Oh! I forgot that you obviously said each other’s words when you died!”

Reggie doesn’t meet any of their eyes. “I…I thought that I lost him for good. I don’t want to talk about it again.”

Julie wrings her hands together. “Oh..I’m sorry.”

Reggie shrugs her off. “Nah, you didn’t do anything wrong. Besides, I thought I was promised cuddles. I’ve got Luke, but what about you two?”

They quickly compile, Julie turning off the lights before joining them. Luke and Reggie tell the story, Alex adding stuff that he deems important to the story, though all it succeeds in doing is further embarrassing the new couple.

Once the story is over, Alex laughs and says, “You guys should tell her about the time you tried to set Reg up with Bobby.”

Luke and Reggie groan. Reggie runs his hand over his face. “Not my finest moment.”

“I think I was jealous just a little, and maybe tried to overdo it.”

“Okay, but you actually have to tell me the story!”

“I panicked when Luke asked if my crush was Bobby and I said yes because it’s really hard to say no to Luke.”

Julie snorts. “Bi panic.”

“What?” They ask in unison.

Julie chuckles. “I’ll explain later. It’s more modern terminology.”

“Ahhh.”

“Yeah.” After a while, Julie yawns. “I think the post-show adrenaline has worn off.”

Just as Julie’s about to fall asleep, Reggie asks, “Who’s your other soulmate?”

“I don’t know.”

Reggie replies, “You sound like you _do_ know.”

“I don’t,” Julie insists.

Alex interjects, “Leave it alone. We left you and Luke alone.”

Reggie whines. “Yeah, but it’s annoying when others do it. We needed to be dramatic star-crossed lovers.”

Luke says, “Yeah, and on that note, how did you figure out about Flynn?”

Julie takes a deep breath. “Well, we met in 8th grade, and were friends for a while. I’ve always had my marks. And then school let out and it was summer time. I was in a swimsuit because Flynn and I were invited to Carrie’s house for hanging out at the pool, so my marks were visible to everyone since they’re on my thighs. And Flynn noticed and she showed me her marks, one on the back of her neck, and one on her shoulder on the other side. We kind of figured out that we were soulmates because we both had two marks, and that’s kind of rare, so that’s how we figured it out. Only three other people we knew actually had two marks…” Julie trails off.

“The press had a field day over it, and it was in the tabloids and every magazine for months. They found out that Trevor had two marks, but he wasn’t married, so basically they were trying to figure out who his soulmates might be because the press is pretty nosy. Carrie told us that her father’s soulmarks were platonic, because he didn’t ever like anybody.”

Luke crows. “Oh my gosh guys! That makes so much sense!”

Julie wrinkles her face. “How?”

Alex answers. “Bobbert never actually liked anyone when we were alive. Like ever.”

Reggie nods and agrees. “Every time we tried to set him up, he got all uncomfortable, and he didn’t like to talk about his marks. He never actually told us he had multiple, we just kind of figured it out one day when he slipped and said marks, as in multiple.”

“Oh. That actually. Yeah, that sounds about right,” Luke says. Then, “Shit! You guys knew and didn’t tell me?! I tried to set Reg and Bobbit up! I thought the little shit only had one mark!”

Julie laughs. “Bobbert? Bobbit?”

The three boys kind of share a glance before Alex says, “Nicknames. But…it’s been a while..”

Julie seems to understand, and she nods before continuing, “My parents also had two soulmarks. They always told me that one was platonic and one was romantic. It took me so many years to figure out that the platonic one was always Trevor. It just never clicked until a few months before Mom… Well, Flynn and I kind of figured that we were platonic until like mid-way through Freshman year because then we discovered we liked each other. We started dating and then a few weeks later, Carrie started being rude and short with us. And then the fighting started. We never really figured out what happened. Flynn and I don’t actually know who are third soulmate is. We don’t know anyone else with a third mark around our age.”

Reggie turns to see Alex rubbing Julie’s arm. “Jules, it sounds like you _do_ know. You can tell us if you think you know who it is.”

“I don’t. Know, I mean. I don’t know.”

Reg snorts. “I’ve heard that before. From me, actually.” Then he reaches forward to kiss Luke’s shoulder. “And believe me, it’s bullshit.”

Alex interjects, “You don’t have to tell us but you also don’t have to deny if you know who it is.”

Julie sighs and mumbles something.

Luke nudges her. “Didn’t hear you there.”

She speaks louder. “We thought it was Carrie. Not anymore, obviously, but that’s what we thought.”

“That’s bullshit,” Luke says.

Alex chides Luke. “Be nice about it.”

“But it’s bullshit. She obviously still thinks that they’re soulmates.”

“Lu, stop acting like you understand people’s feelings when you only figured out your own a week ago. And not even then. More like five and a half days ago. You aren’t in the position to give relationship advice.”

“Fuck you.”

“Fuck you.”

“I don’t like sex, idiot.”

Alex groans. “That’s not what I meant! I hate you.”

“I hate you too.”

Reggie squeezes Luke’s hand and kisses his cheek. “Let Lexi be. He’s being truthful.”

Luke dramatically groans. “Even my boyfriend is against me!”

Reggie squeaks. “Boyfriend?”

Alex groans. “Idiots. Obviously you two are boyfriends. It’s did and done, stop being disasters for one moment.”

Reggie and Luke laugh, naturally leaning into each other, laughing a little. Reggie finds it interesting how they automatically lean towards each other, like gravity is pulling them together, telling them that they were always made to be near the other. Reggie decides that it’s a really comforting thought.

Julie chuckles and says, “You three are all forces of chaos.” Then, “Goodnight. I’m actually kind of tired now…” She trails off with a yawn. “And Alex is right. It’s none of your business, since it’s not like I’m pining and making the rest of the world miserable.”

Luke starts to protest before Reggie shushes him.

The night is perfect. Reggie has everything he needs, and almost everyone he ever wants. He wouldn’t ever dare ask for more, especially when that more is impossible to receive. But he has Julie and Alex, and obviously Luke, so he’s content to take what he’s given, especially when that _given_ is perfect. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoyed it? Good.  
> Only one more chapter left...And that one will pretty much just be idiots being in love and Alex telling them the news of finding Willie. 
> 
> :)


	16. Finale (B/C I'm Out Of Creative Titles)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... this is it...   
> The final chapter.   
> Are you ready??   
> It's the last of Luke and Reggie's story, but we still have Trevor|Bobby's story and Julie/Carrie/Flynn's story, so it's not THAT sad for me. But it also is, because now this particular story has come to an end...
> 
> Read on and enjoy??

_"They stood there pretending to be just friends when all the while everyone in the room could plainly see that they were only existing for each other.” —Emma Blake_

(I KNOW that I already used that quote, but it’s just so violently Ruke/PeterPatter that I can’t help but use it again because I think it’s absolutely beautiful)

Reggie can still hardly believe that they all survived. And that he told Luke. And they get to stay alive. And that _he told Luke and Luke actually likes him back, right now, no having-to-figure-out-feelings involved._

It’s one of the best feelings in the world.

The next day, they all go searching for Willie, Alex hardly containing his disappointment in not being able to see him. They all go searching together, each of them agreeing to stick together because facing Caleb alone is _not_ on their to-do list. After searching at the beach, the place where Alex and Willie met, the Orpheum, the skatepark, _and_ the museum, Alex obviously starts to lose hope.

They decide to call it a day and head back to the studio. As soon as they poof into the studio, they see Willie standing in the middle of the room. He turns around, and clearly notices the three of them, but he only really seems to _sees_ Alex. “I, I thought that, thought you guys crossed over. I—”

Alex cuts him off and runs forward to engulf Willie in a hug. Willie visibly seems to stumble back and looks like he would fall over if Alex wasn’t holding him upright. It only takes Willie a few seconds to lean into the hug. Reggie and Luke share a look before loudly and obnoxiously saying, “AWWWWW!”

Alex flips them off and says, “Get out.”

Willie just laughs, resting his head on Alex’s chest as he did so. The boys tease them only for a few more seconds before locking hands and poofing out to the beach.

They appear on the docks, feet dangling off the side, the sun finally setting after a long day. Reggie still can’t seem to wrap his head around how gorgeous the sunset is, just like he sometimes can’t wrap his head around how beautiful Luke is, with a smile so genuine and full of life, and eyes that shine and shine, and a voice that makes his whole being seem to light up with energy when he speaks or sings.

Luke kisses the back of Reggie’s hands, that are still linked with Luke’s and grins at him. “We get to do this for as long as we want. I couldn’t think of a better person to share this with.”

Reggie ducks his head down a little and tries to hide the fact that he’s blushing furiously. “You and me. Until we cross over. That sounds pretty amazing.”

Luke nudges his foot against Reggie’s to show his agreement.

Luke rests his and Reggie’s foreheads together while linking their hands. They’ve been talking about it for a while, crossing over. Willie and Alex had crossed over months ago, figuring out that it’s not so much what your unfinished business is, as much as it is deciding when you’re ready to cross over. They decided that it was time, that they were ready, after years upon years of not being ready.

Now they are.

Luke rubs his thumb over the back of Reggie’s hand. “It’s time?”

Reggie nods. “It’s time.”

“ _Are you sure you’re ready?”  
_ “ _As long as I’m with you.”_

They crossed over.

And it was perfect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure if the ending was all that great, but I have to write something, so this is what I wrote. I hope it reached your expectations, sorry if it didn't.
> 
> LOTS OF LOVE<3
> 
> Next part of the series coming out soon!


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